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Class 1,^ -1^: 

Book Jii 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSED 



up TKrou^K CKildhood 



A Study of Some Principles of Education in 
Relation to Faith and Conduct 



A Booh for Parents and Teachers 



By 

George Allen Hubbell, Ph.D. (Columbia) 

Vice-President of Berea College 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

^be Iknickerbocftec ipcesa 

1904 



lUBRARV «f oowesFSS 

I Two OoDies i«««'«»ive4i 
AUG 27-1904 
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CLASS ft^ XXc. No 

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COPY "^ 







Copyright, 1904 

BY 

GEORGE ALLEN HUBBELL 



Published, September, 1904 



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Ube TRnicfeerbocftcr press, mew Kotft 



TO MY MOTHER 

MY FIRST AND BEST TEACHER 

WHOSE INFLUENCE HAS BEEN THE MOST POTENT 

FACTOR IN MY LIFE 

THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 



INTRODUCTION 

Fifty years ago Herbert Spencer made complaint 
that after-dinner conversations in England dealt with 
the regulations of the kennel, stable, and sheep-pen to 
the exclusion of rules touching the rearing of children. 
The same complaint might well have been made in this 
country also. But a half century has wrought mighty 
changes, so that now many mothers, and even some 
fathers, are as much concerned in the hours, ventila- 
tion, and dietary of the nursery as in the condition and 
treatment of their pet animals. This interest extends 
into the school also, and both the subject-matter and 
the method of school instruction are topics of daily con- 
versation in multitudes of homes. Teachers, too, are 
given a recognition and a salary that place them upon 
a dignified plane. 

But the wave of educational enthusiasm that has swept 
over this country during the last generation has limited 
itself very largely to skilled instruction in the common- 
school studies. In spite of much talk about moral and 
religious education, our plans for securing moral de- 
velopment are still vague, and those bearing on religious 
training are fully fifty years behind the times. Most 
of Sunday-school instruction must be declared an ab- 
solute failure, if judged by the standards of a good 



vi Introduction 

day-school, and most preaching would fare no better if 
measured by the norms adopted in the better training- 
schools for teachers and colleges. Religious teachers, 
as a class, have not yet learned to regard themselves as 
subject to psychological law, the same as any other 
teachers. As a class, they do not read educational 
treatises, nor share in discussions of educational pro- 
blems. This tendency of non-identification with teach- 
ing is well illustrated in the teachers' institutes held in 
all parts of the country, where, as a rule, some minister 
leads the devotional exercises at the beginning of the 
day's work — and then disappears. 

The seriousness of this state of affairs is clearly seen 
when we reflect that morality is largely based upon re- 
ligion. It is true that day-school teachers are doing 
far too little for the moral and religious growth of 
children, but it is difficult for them to do much, when 
the specialists in the field of religion, the preachers 
themselves, are novices in educational matters and are 
accomplishing next to nothing. 

In my opinion, if the religious instruction of young 
people were radically improved, the day-school would 
see its way more clearly to introduce a greater amount 
and a better quality of moral teaching. Thus far, 
however, the day-school has had to be the aggressor in 
effecting educational reforms. On the basis of psycho- 
logy, it has been making demands on the Church and 
on the Sunday-school, while the truer course would 
be for the rehgious leaders, on the basis of approved 



Introduction vii 

educational principles, to make demands on the day- 
school. 

Probably the main reason why so little educational 
advance has been made in the field of religion — in the 
age of educational advance — has been the fact that peo- 
ple in general have not been sure that religion is a field 
where progress is a virtue. But another important 
reason has been the fact that educational books dealing 
with moral and religious questions have revealed only 
a hazy body of thought, or have expressed their ideas 
in a form too technical for the average person. This 
author seems to me to have avoided both evils. The 
thought is always clear, and it is presented as much 
from the point of view of a parent as of a teacher. The 
bearing of well established educational ideas on moral 
and religious education is largely the theme, and in 
tracing this bearing the valuable suggestions are in- 
numerable. But the statements are always so clear, so 
free from dogmatism, and so sensible that their readers 
are likely to be well rewarded for their pains. 

F. M. McMuRRY. 

Teiach^rS Qoi,i,^G^, N. Y., May, 1904. 



PRKFACK 

This is an era of education. There is no branch of 
knowledge, no rehgious cult, but has its schools. In 
the days of Horace Mann intellectual culture was be- 
lieved to have strong moral worth, but we have already 
discovered that one may have fine intellectual training 
and yet be a rogue. Every year adds to the popular 
belief in the value of moral education. There are still 
many doubters, but patient and thoughtful men and 
women are now seeing more clearly than ever before, 
that there is ''an art of bringing up to virtue." This 
art has its principles and methods and is as reasonable 
in its requirements as any other. Education has taken 
a new trend and has a wider range than ever before. 
It has come to mean the training of the whole being, 
so that he ma}^ be able and gladly willing to meet all of 
life's responsibilities. The cause for the growth of this 
wider meaning of education is found in two conditions: 
(i) a recognition of the long period from infancy to 
adult life, in which may be unfolded the child's possi- 
bilities as he grows to the needs of his time and people; 
and (2) the deep religious instinct which has in every 
age clearly manifested itself among men. This book 
deals definitely with the principles and problems of this 
broad development, and while it may scarcely be called 

ix 



X Preface 

a book on moral education, it is the conscious aim to dis- 
cuss the questions of education always from the moral 
point of view. For years I have been studying these 
questions from the various standpoints of Sunday-school 
teacher, Sunday-school superintendent, and school 
officer in every grade from common school to college. 

This book is a growth. It represents the results of 
a number of discussion classes and lecture courses con- 
ducted under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian 
Associations in Brooklyn, and before training classes 
for teachers under the direction of the Sunday-school 
Commission of the Diocese of New York, together with 
a course of lectures delivered before the Friends' Gen- 
eral Conference at Asbury Park, N. J. The statements 
have been turned and winnowed in keen discussion, 
until they represent the best thought of many minds, 
and nearly every idea has, in some regular form of 
work, been submitted to the test of actual experience. 
I give hearty thanks to the many friends who have 
had part in the discussions and who have by their 
cordial approval of my work given me confidence in its 
value. Such approval is my warrant for putting this 
material into a permanent form where it may be of use 
to the great company of men and women who feel the 
responsibility of the teaching office in home and school, 
and who are striving to train the young to be God- 
fearing, earnest, and efficient citizens of this land and 
of the Kingdom which we believe to be eternal. 

G. A. H. 

Be;r^a Co];i,]5G1), May, 1904. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction . . Dr. Frank Morton McMurry v 
PrEi^ack ix 

PARTI 

Thk Schooi. of I^ifk 
Chapter I. Lii^K is Opportunity 3 

The parents' hope for the child — Life is opportunity — 
Purpose in the long period of infancy — The period of 
infancy in man compared with that in animals — The 
Mysterious Stranger — The unknown world — Who is re- 
sponsible ?— The adaptation to conditions —Bach must 
go alone— The sheltered child— The striving— The com- 
ing Bden. 

Chapter II. The Aim oe Education . . . .15 
The wider meaning of education — Variety of Aims — 
Machinery and manhood — Unity of aim in all educa- 
tion — ^The aim in character building — A character effi- 
cient for good: Ivove; Honesty; Insight; Open-mind- 
edness ; Courage ; Perseverance; Knowledge — Positive 
goodness — The religious element — The aim determines 
(i) the action — The aim determines (2) the curriculum — 
The aim determines (3) the method— The aim deter- 
mines (4) the spirit of the teacher — The religious ele- 
ment is fundamental — The true reason for religious 
culture — How to make a child invincible — How 
mightily faith has wrought in human life — Faith makes 
nations great — The old faith in new forms — The re- 
ligious inheritance — The cost of teaching. 

xi 



xii Contents 

PAGE 

Chapter III. The Institutions of Education . . 34 
The Home: Development of the individual ; Enemies 
of the home — The School: The teacher the soul of the 
school; Character of teachers — Society: The one end 
and the many ; Society's stamp ; The occupation ; The 
motor side ; The spirit of service ; Development of feel- 
ing — Government: Primary purpose — The Church: 
A conservative force ; The spiritual thermometer idea; 
Like pew, like preacher; The Church does not meet 
the needs. 

Chapter IV. The Institutions oe Education 

{Continued) 54 

The Sunday School: The test — Wrong conception of 
the work — Lack of definiteness of aim — Defects in cur- 
riculum — Our choice — Lack of right oflScers and teachers 
— Good officers may be had — No provision for action — 
A child's religion and a man's religion — The better 
way — The time to work — The larger field — The ways 
of working — The aim of the Sunday-school — The op- 
portunity — The organisation — The officers: The super- 
intendent ; Assistant superintendent ; Secretary ; The 
Librarian — The curriculum — The ideal Sunday-school — 
To use all available agencies — The home has the first 
claim. 

PART II 

Chapter V. The Teacher and his Work . . .77 
The teacher's work — The ambition for excellence — 
Head enough — Heart enough — Time enough — Liberty 
enough — Too little time — The reward — The other side 
— Natures that repel. 

Chapter VI. The Teacher's Preparation . . .86 
Importance of preparation — The hurtful comparison — 
The child and the Bible — A profound problem — God 
has not left himself without testimony — How to learn 



Contents xiii 

PAGE 

how — God in our history — I^iterature and art — 
Teachers' books — How to study children — The stock 
in trade — A teachers' training class. 

Chapter VII. Thej Te^achkr and thk Bibi^ej . . loo 

The open mind — A useless labour — Truth is many-sided 
— Many roads to truth — The truth-seeker should be 
free — Old truth in new forms — The real record of the 
Eternal— The Bible— The Bible a library— It is a book 
of inspiration. 

Chapte;r VIII. Thej Tkache;r and thi^ Chij;d . . io8 

The two relations— Sympathy — Patience — Love gives 
patience — Aptness to teach — The child is a problem — 
The teacher before the class — Lesson plan. 

PART III 

The) I^karnkr 

ChapTe^r IX. What Is Man? 121 

What is man ? — Soul and body — Relation of mind and 
body — Freedom to grow — How shall we grow ? 

CHAPTI^R X. SEIyF-ACTlVlTY AND ENVIRONMENT . . I36 

The many hungers — The climbing soul — Struggle and 
character — Right relation to environment — Open the 
prison-house — Relations to environment — Our inherit- 
ances: Literary inheritance — Scientific inheritance — 
Esthetic inheritance — Institutional inheritance — 
Religious inheritance — Applications of this inheritance 
to the development of self-activity. 

Chapter XI. The Senses 146 

Introduction — Touch — Taste — Smell — Sight — Hearing 
— Summary 

Chapter XII. Attention 155 

Kinds — Attention must be taught — Involuntary Atten- 
tion — Expectant attention — Dispersed attention — 
Attention determines the current of mental life — 
Attention and inattention — Genius and attention. 



xiv Contents 

PAGE 

Chapter XIII. Apperception 164 

Definition — Every one carries his own spectacles — The 
struggle — New classes for knowledge — P repare the 
mind to receive — How apperception acts — Education a 
permanent interest of life — Summary. 

Chapter XIV. Interest 173 

Interest — The personal element — Interest and aim — 
Right age — Right time — Right material — Points of 
contact — Special hungers — The office of interest — 
Illustrations — Heart power. 

Chapter XV. Memory 182 

lyocation of memory — The three heads — Recall and 
recognition — Conditions of remembering — Repetition 
— Begin early — Memory and the higher powers — 
Memory a treasure house. 

Chapter XVI. Imagination and its Cui.ture . . 192 
Definition — Culture value of imagination — Materials 
for imagination — The practical value of imagination. 

Chapter XVII. Thought and Thought Cui^ture . 202 
Definition — The fundamental condition — Abundance 
of thought-material— The time — A ccumulation of 
material — Talking as a method of accumulating 
material — The use of the will — Units of measurement — 
Methods of reasoning — Deduction — Practice in think- 
ing — Keeping one's temper — Writing as a step in the 
thought process — The concrete and the abstract— Intel- 
lect as a means of obviating our faults — Stability of 
character. 

Chapter XVIII. Motives— Kinds and Vai^ue . . 214 
Definition — Importance of motivation — Kinds of 
motives — Good and bad incentives — The hidden motives 
— Illustration of hidden motives — ^Things worth while 
— The expulsive power of the higher affection — Culti- 
vation of right motives — The test — The place for 
emotion — Relation between effort and accomplishment. 



Contents xv 

PAGE 

Chapter XIX. Habit— Gene^rai, Laws . . . .228 
Theory of habit — Practical value of habit — Physical 
habits — Mental habits — Moral habits— How habit en- 
slaves — The sub-conscious field — Nothing is ever wholly 
lost from the mind — Shield the young — Habit forming: 
Conditions — For the formation of a new habit — 
Personal habits — Business habits. 

Chapter XX. Training the Wii,i< . . . .242 
Irresolution— The will — Types of decision — Apprentice- 
ship in right living — How to reach a child's will — 
Trained, not broken — Wilfulness — Uses of the will — 
Training the will — Liberty and will — Business and 
will — Religion and will. 

Chapter XXI. Feewng and the Inner Life . . 252 
Value of feeling — Feeling and progress — Feeling not 
an unmixed good — The cultivation of feeling — The 
heart as an organ of insight — The inner and the outer 
life — Place of ideals in character — The great ideal. 

Chapter XXII. Training a Chii^d's Faith . . . 260 
Faith rests on the few — Guard the child — Faith moves 
from a lower to a higher plane — The faith of a child and 
the faith of an adult — Zones of brotherliness — 
Knowledge and faith — The element of wonder — Sum- 
mary. 

Chapter XXIII. From Boyhood to Manhood . . 266 
The play spirit — His religious life — An impulse, then 
a deed — Truthfulness — A boy's feelings — Grief seems to 
him holy — Physical changes — Mental changes — Spirit- 
ual changes — Summary. 

Chapter XXIV. From Giri^hood to Womanhood . 277 

Diflference in the standards to which boys and girls 
are required to conform — Sensitive to atmosphere — 
Value of ideals — The right motive — Business training 
— The ministry of sorrow — Summary. 



xvi Contents 

PAGE 

PART IV 

The^ Graduate 

Chapter XXV. The Rounded Life .... 289 
Summary— The individual — Development of the body 
— Development of the spiritual nature — Development 
of society. 

Index 297 



PART I 
THE SCHOOL OF LIFE 



CHAPTER I 

WFE IS OPPORTUNITY 

Many a mother, as she presses her child to her 

bosom, sends up a prayer for its safety, and looks with 

joy and hope to the future. Hers is not _. 

The 

the child that shall go into sin; it shall win Parents' 
success, shall improve its opportunities. Hope for 
Many a father, as he leads his little son by 
the hand, plans for him great things, and feels sure that 
though others may meet disappointment, doubt, and 
defeat his son will surely accomplish remarkable 
things. But these parents have need to hope and pray 
with reverence and with fear. The thousands in pris- 
ons all were children once, and many of these rested 
their heads on loving breasts and were led by tender 
hands. The tramp that you see from the car window 
and the loafer on the street corner may one day have 
been children of hope and promise; but the education 
of the world and of the home has failed, life is passing, 
and the achievements of these have been other than 
love could wish. But hope springs eternal in the 
human breast. Every generation looks for better things 
than those which have happened to the last. Ours is 

3 



4 Up Through Childhood 

no exception. We are sustained by an optimism which 
rises above all discouragement. Here, we wait and 
hope and go the round of life, and our generation will 
sink into the grave with its thousands who have been 
disgraced, and other thousands on whose faces there 
is the deep stamp of sorrow, disappointment, sin, or 
shame. How many press for food about charitable 
institutions, and how many in houses of refuge and 
places of retreat bear in their faces the marks of the 
great world-struggle: Failure! Failure! Failure! De- 
spite this record, every one knows in his own heart 
that life is opportunity. 

Life gives time and place to grow; it calls out powers 

and possibilities within, making man more in quantity 

and finer in quality. Its varied experiences 

Life Is Op- jjjake a thousand rifts in his nature, through 
portunity. 

which shines out the inner glory of the di- 
vine. From the reactions of life there spring in heart 
and mind ideas, impulses, and aspirations, which time 
only serves to rouse more fully, and which will require 
eternity itself to satisfy. Man's life from the cradle to 
the grave is one long round of preparation and develop- 
ment. New powers are discovered; budding powers 
are brought to maturity; and through the varied ex- 
periences of life the child comes step by step to youth, 
manhood, middle life, and then to old age. In this 
process he is adapting himself to the civilisation which 
surrounds him. He is in the School of I^ife. Environ- 
ment and Self are acting and reacting upon each other; 



Life Is Opportunity 5 

this process of reaction we term Education. Viewed 
in its larger aspect, it must continue as long as life 
itself; and it will be extended by every agency that 
contributes knowledge or power. The work of educa- 
tion has not only the whole period of life for its scope 
and activity, but it has a special period, when every 
force of nature and every element of the surroundings 
are contributing directly to the great work of develop- 
ment and adaptation. 

When the little stranger comes into the world he is 
in the midst of mystery; and if the truth were told, he 
brings an organisation which is to him as Purpose 

great a mystery as the world into which he °^ ^^^ 

Long^ 
comes. It is not without purpose that the Period of 

young being is so long a child. The mar- Infancy, 
vellous adaptability of his nature and the long period 
of infancy are needed that he may be fitted to the civil- 
isation into which he is born. But there is more than 
that: the child must have time to grow. There is no 
patent method of making a child into a man; the long 
difficult pathway is the only track that he can pursue. 
And he must go alone; all the help parent or teacher 
may offer, all the experience and advice that may be 
tendered, must be worked through his own mind and 
transformed into his own coin; otherwise he cannot use 
it. Mr. Fiske's great contribution to Evolution was 
the teaching that the complexity and importance of 
individual development depend upon the length of the 
period of infancy. 



6 Up Through Childhood 

*' The lower animals are born with an almost cotn- 

plete adaptation for the performance of their life func- 

Period of tions. The colt stands when only a few 

Infancy in hours old. At the age of three, he can do 

^"j °^L almost all he can ever do in his lifetime. It 
pared with 

that in is not so with a human infant. For years it 
Animals, jg absolutely dependent upon others for the 
continuance of its existence. No living creature is 
more ignorant, more defenceless, more entirely at the 
mercy of beings other than itself. Destined for the 
highest attainments of intelligence, the infant possesses 
the least automatic adaptation to the conditions of life. 
Everything has to be learned from the beginning. In- 
stinct is at the minimum; intellect, undeveloped, but 
potential, is at the maximum. Almost everything 
done by the child is done by conscious physical 
reaction . ' ' — Hii,!,' s Psychology. 

The following story, condensed from Jane Taylor's 
Mysterious Stranger, will serve to illustrate : 

Some years ago, in the streets of a certain Oriental 
city, there was seen a man of peculiar appearance. He 
The Mys- seemed enterprising and intelligent, but the 
terious inhabitants very soon discovered that he was 

^^.nger. ^ stranger, and on investigation learned that 
he was unacquainted with their language. A bene- 
volent nobleman invited the stranger to his home and 
made him comfortable. The association of the noble- 
man and stranger proved of advantage to both, and in 
a few days the foreigner was able to express himself 



Life Is Opportunity 7 

with a considerable degree of ease on many of the com- 
moner things of life. In short he was learning the 
language and adapting himself to the civilisation into 
which he had come. lyater, when his story was told, 
it transpired that he had come from a distant planet, 
pledging to take upon himself the obligations and to 
share in the pleasures of the inhabitants of our earth. 
The story of his adaptation to the new civilisation on 
which he had entered and of the long and painful effort 
he, as a man, made in adapting himself to our manners 
and customs, thoughts and ideals, need not here be re- 
counted, but it will help us to feel more strongly the 
advantage that comes to the child from the long period 
of infancy, when his tastes, ideals, and habits are form- 
ing, and when he reaches out to take new things with 
a welcome and an earnestness which rapidly make for 
his successful initiation into life. 

The little boy has intentionally hurt his playmate, 
and first experiences and recognises remorse; with the 
pride of a good marksman he has brought ^. 

to the earth a bird, fluttering in its death Unknown 
agony, — pity is born into his life. He is World, 
older, and one day his father introduces him to a 
stranger with a conscious pride, and the boy has a 
sense of manhood which is new to him. He attends a 
party or a reception, or at the house of a friend meets 
a girl who seems to him different from all others; she 
casts over his thought and life a nameless charm which 
sooner or later he recognises as love. He attempts 



8 Up Through Childhood 

some great undertakings and, after striving long and 
manfully, finds that he cannot succeed. In this he 
learned a lesson of his own insufficiency that no preach- 
ing and no books could ever tell him. He goes to a 
foreign land, and, after the exhausting travel of the day, 
comes to a quiet hamlet where his country's flag is 
displayed; there springs unbidden a new joy at the 
thought of the native land, and patriotism has been 
born into his life. In these or similar ways, step by 
step he experiences life and comes into a recognition of 
new powers and new activities. All through the age 
of adolescence budding powers show themselves, and 
are nursed into strength or are neglected and fail 
through lack of use. Life is opportunity. 

With the great end of life before us, we need to plan 
wisely for the development of every soul; and there 
needs to be such planning that at the end there shall 
be rejoicing and satisfaction, and not remorse for op- 
portunities neglected and time unused. 

There is a story of a maiden on the shore of a tran- 
quil lake. She stepped into a richly furnished boat, 
seated herself, and, gently dipping her oars into the 
water, passed out on its smooth surface. In a dreamy 
mood she rested her head on the luxurious cushions 
and presently fell asleep, while the boat drifted on the 
glistening surface of the lake. As she moved in her 
sleep her necklace was unfastened, and one by one the 
pearls came off and disappeared in the hidden depths. 
Still she slept on, and with every motion another pearl 



Life Is Opportunity 9 

was lost. Not unlike this is the slipping away of the 
moments of the young life, and presently old age comes, 
and we look with sadness at the hours that have been 
wasted and the opportunities that have passed unused. 
They are the treasures of youth; alas! too often they 
slip away! 

*'Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and 
sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond 
minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone for- 
ever! " — HoRACK Mann. 

There is no one of us who might not use with truth 
this advertisement. But there is a sadder side than the 
waste of time; it comes from storing up those things 
which bring us only pain and remorse. 

A boy who had reached the age of twenty-one, in a 

fit of anger and impatience, struck his mother. She 

upbraided him for his undutiful conduct, 

and he retorted: ''You have aimed to he^^^^^^^Z 

sponsible ? 

kind to me, but your kindness has been silly 
and fatal : you urged me to eat when I was not hun- 
gry, to drink when I was not thirsty; sweetmeats and 
pastry have ruined my digestion and have made me a 
misery to myself and a curse to my friends. You have 
never required me to govern my temper, I have had my 
own way since childhood, I grew up a wilful, impatient, 
and high-spirited boy, and every one was compelled to 
dance attendance to my wishes. Is it my fault that at 
twenty-one I have no digestion, and that I am a slave 
to every whim of impulse and passion ? And is it my 



lo Up Through Childhood 

fault that I am impatient, with no power to govern my- 
self, and that I am tormented by a remorse which never 
rests ? Is it my fault that you, who were my guide and 
guardian, have neglected every restraining influence 
and allowed me to go untrained, so that I am the vic- 
tim of a weak will and the slave of a perverted taste ? 
You upbraid me for the results of your own work." 
Scenes like these put in a strong light the parents' duty 
and their responsibility! 

The child must not only acquire a great stock of 
knowledge, but he must gain skill. There is the skill 

of the body by which he is to manage him- 
Adaptation self. He must learn to use his hands. Even 
to Con- a little child cannot feed himself gracefully, 

but with the spoon half full of food makes a 
dash for his mouth, and in the early stages of his prac- 
tice strikes nose, or cheek, or ear. When he tries to 
walk he cannot find his balance, but frantically plunges 
from chair to chair in his effort to get across the room. 
There is need for a host of impressions. Sensations 
and perceptions must be collected in multitudes. The 
material for thought must be stored, assorted, and 
classified, not of course in any exalted or conscious 
way most of the time, but definitely, steadily, and in- 
stinctively. The judgment must be trained, that with 
many a mistake and many a correction he may come at 
last to speak correctly and soundly touching the points 
of daily experience. Kvery year should adapt him 
more fully to the surroundings in which he lives, and 



Life Is Opportunity ii 

every experience should do something to qualify him 
to meet the new demands which advancing life offers to 
his growing powers and developing intelligence. One 
should go forward step by step into a larger life and 
into the realisation of a fine, noble, and beautiful char- 
acter, which assures satisfaction to himself and joy to 
all who are touched by his radiant and uplifting influ- 
ence. He can fulfil the measure which his place re- 
quires and acquit himself of the full demands of society ; 
but how slowly and in what unexpected ways he comes 
into his inheritance! 

I have said that each must tread the long dark 
path of life alone. But there are a thousand ways 
in which a kind and wise parent or teacher 
may give help. It must be given with q^ Alone 
wisdom, and it must come in the spirit of 
kindness, and gentleness, and service. But only to 
a degree can one person profit by the experience 
of another. The mistake is often made of thrusting 
upon the youth the wisdom of age with a frantic impa- 
tience which urges acceptance; but the youth does not 
accept. It is not that he will not, but he cannot. He 
must learn life's lessons for himself. However, just as 
he is strong, just as he has insight and power and self- 
control, the child will be wiser than those who have 
gone before, and will succeed where they in some 
measure failed. He may in part interpret what they 
have seen and suffered, as from his heart he under- 
stands and knows their life, and is able to incorporate 



12 Up Through Childhood 

in his life many a lesson whicli caused them tears. 
Happy is the growing child who, by the guidance of 
the teacher or parent, can himself go from experience to 
experience, gathering for use the nectar and leaving 
the poison ! With a clear insight and right understand- 
ing of the aim of education, the willing child and the 
open-minded teacher may work together toward the ac- 
complishment of a true and well rounded life, develop- 
ing a character which is fine and strong in all its parts. 
If they see that life is opportunity, if they recognise the 
great principles which govern it, there is no reason why 
these may not be used with joy and satisfaction; but 
teacher and parent must never forget that the child is 
to work out his own destiny. How often they grieve 
in their narrow way when he chooses a course of action 
which they do not approve, or seeks surroundings 
which they cannot admire! 

Many a parent who has been made strong and earn- 
est by a life of struggle refuses to allow his son the very 
-pjjg elements by which he himself has been 

Sheltered made great. He even refuses to allow him 
Child. |.j^g opportunity of the vision of life and its 

duties; refuses to allow him the complete consecration 
to a purpose which would go far toward making his 
life a success; and last but not least, refuses him an 
opportunity to try his own strength. The little oak is 
required to grow up under the shade of a great tree, 
which keeps it in the shadow and prevents its growing 
strong and sending down great roots into the subsoil, 



Life Is Opportunity 13 

there to take a hold which will make it strong to with- 
stand the storms of the centuries. Thus many a boy 
has been so sheltered from the storms of the world that 
it was impossible for him to develop those sturdy ele- 
ments of character which made the Duke of Welling- 
ton a tower of strength standing four-square to every 
wind that blew. The child must solve life's problems 
for himself; he must bear the responsibility, he must 
carry the treasure. Life is like a jewel entrusted to 
the traveller; he comes to his destination with every 
part burnished and shining, or he comes with shame 
to confess duty neglected and work undone. Pity the 
man who looks upon fond hopes and high aspirations 
which have lost their morning glow! Alas! that ex- 
perience should rest like a blight upon the thousands 
who started out in the morning of life bright with 
hope! But we can never accept this defeat. It is not 
human destiny. Still the soul of man rises and will 
not stay in the shadow. For individual and society 
there must come a brighter prospect. We shall do 
better. Every one has his field of strength — a side on 
which he surpasses his normal self; and in time we 
shall be wise enough to place men and women where 
they may be strong both to resist and to accomplish. 

Let every person be trained to reach the very best his 
nature will allow; then place him in such 

relation to life and men that he may work '^^^ 

Striving. 
on the strongest side, and we shall see a 

degree of excellence and achievement quite beyond 



Up Through Childhood 

the present deed or thought. L,et the woof of daily 
circumstance be shot through with the essence of the 
spiritual, and many shall see * ' the light which never 
was on sea or land." 

Given an army of men and women so generated and 
so trained, and society will renew itself. The kindlier 
yjjg Kden will come back to men; and out of the 

Coming cheerful and intelligent co-operation of hon- 
• est souls will come a redeemed humanity, 

with strong bodies, clear minds, true spirits, and deli- 
cate consciences. Then we shall have a society in 
which most will work for the common good. The 
weak will be protected by the strong, and the ignorant 
willingly taught by the wise. 

The golden age is in the future; and with the eye of 
science and the eye of faith we look to its coming. 
But this is not a matter of emotion, of high hope and 
gilded dreams; it is a matter of struggle, of sacrifice, 
of sterling common-sense, of wise adaptation of means 
to right ends. We must know the journey's end, and 
we must understand every step of the way. With all 
the high oiGSces which life offers we do well to use in 
preparation every suggestion which experience can 
give. 



CHAPTER II 

the; aim of education 

With a better understanding of man's nature and 
tendencies, we are coming to a saner view of the char- 
acter and scope of education. In the earlier 
days, men taught that the world was sharply Wider 
divided into the sacred and the secular; we Meaning of 
are coming now to feel that the earth is holy, 
a workshop of the Omnipotent in which his purposes 
are wrought out by the toiling, striving sons of men. 
We have caught the larger vision. Man is working 
out the thoughts of the Omnipotent, and as he comes 
to a realisation of the beauty and dignity of his destiny, 
there break over his life a new sense of human worth 
and a new recognition of human responsibility. Edu- 
cation takes a new meaning. In his striking way, 
Parker says: ** There is but one question in this world: 
* How to make man better ' ; and but one answer: 'Edu- 
cation.' " When one has such a view of man's place 
in the world, he cannot trifle, but must give large at- 
tention to his own highest development. The mind 
must be alert, active, incisive, reasonable; the heart 
must be true, tender, sympathetic, and submissive to 

15 



1 6 Up Through Childhood 

judgment; the will must be trained to require steadfast 
and trustworthy obedience, always in harmony with 
truth and right. The end, in short, must be to make 
from the material at hand, the best man or woman 
possible. 

It is commonly supposed that there is a great variety 
of aims in education. Considered in its narrower as- 
pect, this is true; but if these aims are right 
rA*^ ^ aims, they all contribute to the higher one of 
character building, of efficiency, of practical 
judgment in everyday affairs. One makes the storing 
of facts in the memory the chief aim; another em- 
phasises the skill in judgment; another, the skill of 
the hand. It is supposed that if a boy be taught to re- 
cite the countries and rivers of Asia in regular order, if 
he be taught to do certain problems in arithmetic, and 
to parse nouns and verbs, that his judgment will be so 
trained that he may know a safe investment. It is be- 
lieved that whether he be taught to cane a chair, make 
a broom, or build a house, it will all in some way min- 
ister to the man. What is all this but the one idea in 
different forms: the idea that the call for action will de- 
velop power, and that power means manhood? The 
demands of life and experience with men and things 
must be so used in the training of boys that they may 
become forceful and useful men, able to take care of 
themselves and to provide for others who may depend 
upon them. When knowledge is the aim, memory is 
the toiler and examination the taskmaster. When 



The Aim of Education 17 

knowledge comes first, it must set aside true righteous- 
ness, skill, the finer feelings, and indeed the whole 
range of virtues; but when character is the major aim, 
all the higher faculties have their legitimate work, and 
a conscience void of offence encourages, chides, and in- 
spires us that the right result may be accomplished. 
When skill is the aim, education becomes the old ap- 
prentice system, with definite and rapid demands for 
the repetition of a simple kind of action; and those who 
are thus educated become repeaters of oft-repeated 
things. They are skilful machines, made to do a de- 
finite work almost without fault, and yet lacking the 
fulness, clearness, range, and vigour of men. 

No one will question the value of machinery to re- 
lieve men from the drudgery of much of the world's 
work; but who can fail to see that the ex- jyiachinery 
treme divisions of labour which machinery and 

has brought into our modern industrial life Manhood, 
have resulted in making many of the workers so many 
fractions instead of units? I once visited a shoe factory 
in which a single shoe passed through more than 
eighty different hands. One workman did nothing 
but pile together three little bits of leather and drive a 
nail through them. Think of this occupation from 
morning till night, for a month, a year, a lifetime! Is 
there anything that withers more? A man's business 
ought to continue his education. As it is in the vari- 
ous lines of industrial activity to-day, machinery has 
been developed until no workman may longer carry out 



1 8 Up Through Childhood 

a complete process. He is an operator of machines, a 
man who makes part of a waggon, a hat, a shoe, or a 
coat; a man who lives an endless round of fractions, 
the same fraction with the same reaction on his soul. 
He is a part of the pitiless grind of an industrial system, 
which in many ways fails to develop thought or action. 

With all this variety of aims, any careful thinker will 
recognise that each is only a part of the wide range of 
Unity of educational activities necessary to call out 
Aim in All and develop strong, noble, and beautiful 

duca ion. characters in men of widely different endow- 
ments. We not only need a true aim, but we need that 
practice which will establish habits of right action; no- 
thing else will meet our purpose. There is a great deal 
of good intention and much high aspiration, but with 
it all there is need for a conscious recognition of the 
spiritual element in life and conduct. Our national life 
is permeated by a wonderful industrial activity; and 
this activity has resulted in such a development of the 
material world as has not been seen for two thousand 
years. We have unconsciously come to glorify force, 
to honour houses and lands, and title and power, without 
stopping to inquire how these houses and lands were 
gained, and without asking how the power is used. 
lyCt me plead for the consideration of the sources and 
uses of material wealth, and for a fuller recognition of 
the spiritual elements as a supreme necessity in all 
standards of life and plans of conduct. It is true that 
the material advancement of this age has made possible 



The Aim of Education 19 

many desirable things which before were beyond our 
reach, but in failing to consider life in its spiritual as- 
pects we have lost some of the most valuable forces of 
our day and generation. It is not enough that we can 
cross the Atlantic in less than six days, that we can 
plant thousands of acres in our great West, and raise 
wheat to feed the hungry millions; it is not enough 
that we do these things, unless those who travel travel 
for a worthy purpose, and unless the hungry are fed in 
order that they may live righteously. Is there a higher 
purpose than that which is implied in the question 
* * What shall a man profit if he gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul ? " — what is the gain if the man 
shall lose himself to win a fortune? The inscription 
on the old tombstone, ''Born a man, and died a 
grocer," is to-day true of thousands. With all our 
glorification of the advancement of this age, we shall 
do well to remember that the soul is still oracular, and 
that we must sufier for every time that we submerge 
the divine in our fellow men or in ourselves. It is the 
spirit that is chief, the spirit that should rule. The 
spiritual hunger must first be recognised and satisfied. 
The great end of human life is the accumulation of 
human wealth, and this wealth we call character. 

No one will question that salvation in its highest and 
best sense is the aim to be set in this work; 'j-j^^ j^^^ -^^ 
and it is such a salvation as saves continu- Character 
ally, and it is salvation for the individual B"*l<Ji"g' 
and for society. We, forgetting, sometimes make our 



20 Up Through Childhood 

aim, social culture, the training in good manners, the 
study of history or even of the Bible; but the aim 
should be the development in the individual of a char- 
acter efficient for good, a character which will prepare 
to serve; and through the individual comes that 
larger service which ministers to the welfare of the 
community. 

" And the entire object of true education is to make 
people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the 
right things — not merely industrious, but to love in- 
dustry — not merely learned, but to love knowledge — 
not merely pure, but to love purity — not merely just, 
but to hunger and thirst after justice." — Ruskin, 
Traffic. 

The old monastic idea, that the body is the enemy of 
the spirit, and that only by the abuse of the body are 
we able to bring about the triumph of the 
acter spirit, is now practically discarded. We 

Efficient have come to see that the body is right and 
true, and that with proper care and required 
discipline it may be made a power to help us on to God. 
We are made up of the physical and the spiritual, and 
upon the harmonious action of our different natures 
will depend the success in all the activities of life. It 
is first required that the body may be strong and 
healthy, in order that it may minister to right instincts 
and worthy desires. The great revival in devotion to 
exercise and the general participation in outdoor 
games is one of the best signs of our times, and pro- 



The Aim of Education 21 

mises much for the advancement of our people. I^et the 
body be governed by a strong will, and let the mind be 
dominated by high desires and sustained by vigorous 
common-sense, and we shall have a character that right 
well becomes a man. Taking for granted the health 
of the body and of the mind, I venture to mention 
seven of the elements of a character efficient for good. 
Not that there is any reason why there should be seven 
instead of two, or twenty; but that with a few elements 
definitely stated, a teacher will work more directly to 
the right end. These are: love, honesty, insight, open- 
mindedness, courage, perseverance, knowledge. 

Drummond calls love the greatest thing in the world. 
Paul names faith, hope, and charity, and concludes that 

charity is greatest of these. Christ himself 

L0V6 

has called love highest of all, and given as 

the great commandments, love to God and love to our 
neighbour. 

There is an honesty that is wider in its application 
than the mere paying of one's debts or fulfilling his 

promise. It is the honesty of thought, word, 

, . , , , , . Honesty, 

and deed, and may be made to cover sincer- 
ity, truthfulness, and that rugged sort of honesty that 
establishes permanent relations. 

How many people who are really kind and noble in 
nature trample upon the feelings of a friend! And it 
is not because they would do this, but be- 
cause of a kind of blindness which hinders 
them from seeing things as they are. I am led to place 



22 Up Through Childhood 

insight very high in the scale of the virtues of char- 
acter. It is not only the insight of the mind, but the 
insight of the heart. Here rest all the beauty, and 
glory, and success of *' Put yourself in his place.'* 

By open-mindedness I mean that kind of selective 
receptivity which is unwilling to turn aside without 
Open- examination of those things which are new 

minded- and strange. I mean that attitude of mind 
"®^^' which seeks for truth and all truth at any 

cost, and welcomes it as the highest satisfaction of a 
hungry mind. 

In a world so fraught with pain and loss, so filled 

with dangers, real and imaginary, a courageous heart 

is a thousand times more sure of winning 
Courage. 

the success which is permanent, than any 

other. And such a heart, by the very spirit of heroism 

which it manifests, is much more likely to preclude 

defeat than one more doubtful. 

It is not enough that we have love and honesty and 

insight and open-mindedness and courage; we must 

desire to do the right in the right way. We 
Persever- ^ , , . , . , 

ance. must have the nght mmd, and we must 

have that boldness which cannot fail. But 

more than that, we must have perseverance, which, if 

defeated once, twice, or thrice, returns to the attack. 

It is the steady dropping that wears away the stone, 

and the spirit of never-die which wins the victory. 

I^ast in this list I place knowledge, — knowledge of 

one's self and knowledge of the world. Knowledge 






The Aim of Education 23 

from books and knowledge from one's own heart, and 

from the hearts of his fellow men. Knowledge is 

power. It gives breadth of view, makes one 

strong in the belief that he is right, and Know- 

ledge. 
gives a new power to his efforts, because he is 

freed from bondage to the unknown. One must know 
his field. ** The world fears the man of one book." To 
know deeply and well is the secret of victory. 

It is not enough in these days that people be good in 
the sense that they are not bad; they must be earnest, 
energetic, aggressive, and progressive work- 
ers of righteousness. It will no longer do Positive 

Goodness, 
for a person to be good, but he must be good 

for something. There must be in the character high 
quality and large quantity. 

Whoever has watched closely the result of the ordin- 
ary education due to home, school, church, society, 
and government, cannot doubt that the product is too 
small to justify the effort put forth. With all our ma- 
chinery and all our effort, we generally fail to develop 
a sufficient amount of the man. Our work lacks in 
quantity, as well as in quality. Kvery child has a 
right to the highest and best development possible to 
his endowment. Our students should have better con- 
trol of themselves; they should be able to use them- 
selves; they should be more, in order that they may do 
more. We do want higher quality; but just as truly 
we want more quantity. We must have the best and 
more of it. We need the highest type of man : the one 



24 Up Through Childhood 

who pays with what he is; there are others who pay 
with what they do, and a few who pay with what they 
say, but the cheques of the last always go to protest, 
and the other two paymasters are becoming more and 
more recognised. 

There is no factor in education that will contribute 
more to this end of quantity and quality than the great 
-pjjg religious element. Here, if anywhere, is to 

Religious be found the dominant motive which with a 
Element, sleepless vigilance will cause a child to make 
the most of himself. Says President Dabney: " The 
true education trains men to think right on a straight 
line, to feel right, to will right, to do right, and so to 
be right; it makes character not only of moral abstract 
goodness, but in practical efficiency — a character that 
does good things." Now, for the development of this 
character that does good things, there is needed a de- 
finite, sensible, religious training. Even wise old Cicero 
in pagan Rome had already seen that there must be 
training for right living, and that the laws which 
govern such training might be organised and stated. 

* ' It should not be claimed that there is no art or sci- 
ence of training up to virtue. Remember how absurd 
it would be to believe that even the most trifling em- 
ployment has its rules and methods, and at the same 
time that the highest of all departments of human 
effort — virtue — can be mastered without instruction and 
practice. ' ' — CiCKRO. 

For the development of a sound character there must 



The Aim of Education 25 

be a right aim and right methods. What would be 
thought of a master builder who should begin to rear 
a palace without plans and specifications; of ^j^^ ^-^^ 
an engineer who should attempt a Brooklyn Determines 
Bridge without all essential knowledge as Action, 
to the location of the structure, the character of the 
materials, the arrangement of the parts, and a know- 
ledge of the strain which would be likely to come upon 
every abutment, beam, or cable ? What farmer would 
venture, with hopes of harvest, to plant a field without 
considering whether the seed were adapted to the soil, 
climate, and season ? What engineer would throw the 
lever of the engine which would carry his train down 
the track without first considering whether it was to 
lead to the destination desired ? In short, is there any 
sensible man who does not consider aim as fundamental 
in determining his course of action ? 

It is not enough that something be studied, but that 
thing must be studied which will contribute to the 
growth of the higher nature and the en- 
thronement of the will. No time-honoured Determines 
customs, no preconceived notions, sacred *^e Cur- 
or secular, lay or ecclesiastical, must be al- 
lowed to hinder the choice of right material and the 
abandonment of that which fails to serve our purpose. 
The good of the child is the supreme end. If we be- 
lieve facts are to educate, our curriculum will abound 
in facts. If we seek skill, our curriculum will abound 
in exercises. If we seek feeling, we will provide 



26 up Through Childhood 

abundant teaching in the field of emotion. In short, 

whatever our aim, we will offer the material which 

contributes to that end. 

When knowledge is the end to be gained, all forces 

focus upon loading the memory with facts. There 

_. .. must be classification, repetition, drill, 
The Aim 

Determines words! words! words! until the head is 
the weary and the heart is sick; but with char- 

acter as the aim there is a wider range of 
activity, and a range which seeks the development of 
all the powers. The purpose is to make something 
greater than a scholar, it is to make a person, a man, 
a woman, ready for the duties, exigencies, joys, sor- 
rows, hopes, and aspirations of daily life. To this 
end, the method of teaching is varied to suit the needs 
of the growing child, and changed from time to time so 
as to give him that wide range of activity which will 
insure a regular, systematic, and wholesome develop- 
ment of his powers. I have often wondered that we 
have been so long blinded to the great lessons which 
the good Father is teaching us always. We have the 
change of seasons, with the inviting, hopeful days of 
spring-time; the steady, sturdy growing days of sum- 
mer; the quiet, ripening, completing days of autumn; 
and the cold and changeful days of winter, giving 
variety, encouragement, vigour, and inspiration. Na- 
ture on every hand calls to us with a thousand voices, 
teaching us new lessons with the changing days, les- 
sons which develop life and character. It is we who 



The Aim of Education 27 

have chosen the humdrum, the commonplace, the ordi- 
nary, the monotonous. How the nature of the child 
calls to us with silver voice to climb the heights! 

When character is the aim, the work no longer seems 
petty, but with a proper vision and a finer insight there 
is born a patience which fails not, a love The Aim 
which suffers long and is kind, a joy which Determines 

r r ' ^ ' -i r- t r *^® Spirit 

springs from faith in the final outcome of of the 

work, wisely directed and conscientiously Teacher, 
done. If character is our aim in education, and 
we strive by our work to exalt in the minds of the 
students not only the love of good things, but the 
disposition and determination to do them, our love and 
theirs become radiant. If, by the training we give, we 
can insure to them the power to carry out this deter- 
mination, how marvellous is the inheritance into which 
they enter, and how large becomes our calling! In the 
light of this high aim, material, didactic, cheap, or 
common service is no longer acceptable; methods un- 
systematic, unacceptable to the young mind, are no 
longer permissible; and the spirit, impatient, petty, and 
perverse, is no longer possible. The high aim of char- 
acter demands a worthy curriculum; wise and just 
methods; and a teacher of broad, sympathetic, and 
noble spirit. 

Our aim in education must include the religious 
element, because religious instinct is a part of man's 
nature, and rightly considered is one of the most prom- 
ising powers for the development of strong and worthy 



28 Up Through Childhood 

motives. These motives, as they enter deeply into the 
life of the child, become more and more an agency 
The for good, accomplishing large things and 

Re igious vivifying the whole nature, strengthening 
Funda- it with purpose, and re-enforcing it with a 
mental. determination and a perseverance which 
overcome all obstacles. 

It is not to be denied that there has been much un- 
wise teaching of religion, and that holy things have 
often been presented in a way to repel rather than to 
attract the unperverted nature of the child. There is 
much need to warn against blindness and hypocrisy. 
But the teacher who accepts this responsibility must 
not hesitate. The desire for the divine is fundamental, 
and every heart has its longing for that Power which 
is above and beyond itself. The child will find a wel- 
come. It was the Master who took a little child and 
set him in the midst of his disciples, saying, ** Of such 
is the kingdom of heaven." When the young man 
came and kneeled in humility, Jesus, looking on him, 
loved him. His hand is still extended. In every land 
and in every civilisation there have been earnest and 
true seekers after God. This yearning belongs to the 
human heart. 

*'A11 the world over I wonder, 

In lands that I never have trod. 
Are people eternally seeking 
For the signs and steps of a God ? " 

History teems with examples of individuals and races 



The Aim of Education 29 

that have been seeking after God. Child and philo- 
sopher have felt the same longing and uttered the same 
cry; often it has been a cry in the silence of the heart, 
but none the less masterful, and none the less absolute 
in thought and conduct. 

Founded as it is in the nature of man, the yearning 
for the divine can scarcely be stifled. After allowing 
for all the mistakes and errors and crimes 
wrought in the name of faith, any student of Re-con for 
history must conclude that it has been one Religious 
of the great motor agents in the world's pro- Culture, 
gress. A far vision and a supreme faith have made 
men great. 



Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, — they were souls that 

stood alone, 
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam 

incline 
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine. 
By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme 

design. 

I^OWE)!,!,. 

The religious element is one of the unconquerable 

forces of individual character. If you would „ 

lead a child to the highest, equip him with Make a 

all aims and aspirations which have their Child 

...... , ._ , 1 . Invincible. 

basis m the divine, and you will make him 

invincible. 

We think of Joan of Arc, marvellous in her insight, 

unequalled in her accomplishment, surpassing the 



30 Up Through Childhood 

hope which could be founded on human probability. 

She wrought as one in touch with the Infinite, and 

How ^^^ success hearing the voices which were 

Mightily not of earth. 

-,- , . Out across untried seas, into realms which 

Wrought ' 

in Human the wildest imagination had but dreamed of. 
Life I braving unknown terrors, disregarding the 

indifference and atheism of wealth and power, the in- 
trepid Columbus, moved by his sublime faith, pressed 
to the shores of the New World and added a continent 
to the territory of civilisation. 

So with lyOyola, who traversed many lands and mas- 
tered civilisations, wrought out systems and planned 
organisations which commanded the courts of all 
Europe, that he might nourish the faith to which he 
had given his life. 

There was Luther, who, in the sublimity of his hero- 
ism, divided the organised ecclesiasticism of the west- 
ern world, and turned it again to the foundations of a 
pure faith. 

There were Latimer and Ridley, who gave them- 
selves to the flames that they might bear testimony to 
a faith which made them invincible. 

There was Wesley, with the learning and culture of 
Oxford, who, moved by a zeal for righteousness and 
by his love for his fellow men, preached a reformation 
which stirred all England, and turned the course of life 
and thought in channels affecting the current of civil- 
isation to our own day. 



The Aim of Education 31 

There was Gordon, master Christian and master 
soldier, Christ-like among savants or savages. 

There was our own Washington, who, in the dark 
days of Valley Forge, knelt in prayer to seek strength 
for the making of a nation. 

There was I^incoln, who, in the trying hours of the 
great Civil War, turned again and again to the Unseen 
One for solace and for comfort. 

The story is everywhere the same. Priest and patriot, 
soldier and scientist, men of learning and men of un- 
taught sense, lovers of their kind and workers for 
righteousness, everywhere have been sustained and 
soothed by an unfaltering trust which led them through 
many a dark hour of struggle and brought out their 
lives triumphant, to be guides for the people, beacon- 
lights to the true eternity. 

The religious element is one of the irrepressible forces 
in civilisation. Brave old Mohammed, warrior and 
prophet of God, had caught the far vision, . 

and led his forces from victory to victory. Makes 

Cromwell's Ironsides were invincible be- Nations 

Great 

cause they believed in God; so the mission- 
aries in the heart of darkest Africa; the Continental 
Army under Washington, the man of prayer. Faith 
has ruled the world, will rule it; faith is invincible! 

But this faith, marvellous as a motive power, must 
from age to age be guided by knowledge, and restated, 
subject to the great laws of truth. Growth is a law 
of life; readjustment has always been necessary; and 



32 Up Through Childhood 

without pain and without protest we must not only 

allow, but welcome, the adjustment of the religious 

Th Old ideals of the past to the life and activity 

Faith in of our own times. Such adaptation of our 

New religious inheritance to the needs of to-day 

Forms. . , . _ . 

IS the price of its continuance. 

No student can afford to neglect or ignore our re- 
ligious inheritance. It is the crystallisation of great 
The Re- ideals, rich, noble, worthy; it is the gather- 
ligious In- ing together of the best that man has known 
* and thought and felt touching this relation 
to his God and to his fellow men; it is the master princi- 
ple of conduct which has ruled thought and governed 
action; and he who would be a guide of children, work- 
ing out in them the finest and best character that their 
endowment will permit, may as well hope for a good 
harvest with only half a sowing, as to expect a good, 
strong character, with the moral nature of the child 
untaught and his higher nature unquickened. 

But the price of this teaching is beyond any other. 
The teacher or religious reformer, who would readjust 
The ^^^ standards and establish the old truths in 

Cost of a new form, must be in earnest. Of him the 
Teaching. -yy^Qj-i^i requires, as proof of his sincerity, the 
marks of the nails in hands and feet. No temporising 
son of ease, no man seeking his own comfort at the cost 
of the great work committed to his hands, will ever 
win confidence, will ever accomplish this work which 
he has dared to attempt. He, like John and James, 



The Aim of Education 33 

may declare himself able to drink of the cup of his 
Master, and to be baptised with the baptism of service 
which Jesus sealed with his life. But he must make 
full proof of his earnestness, and spend himself unto 
death. 



CHAPTER III 

THK INSTITUTIONS OF EJDUCATION 

The Home 

Thk ideal home requires the husband and father at 
the head as keeper, guide, protector, provider, and 
director; the wife and mother as the nourish er, the 
caretaker, the comforter. The children are not only 
the results of the union, but the objects of care, to be 
sustained, developed, and to receive into their lives 
preferably the finest and best of the natural and ac- 
quired characteristics of the parents. The home pro- 
vides for the perpetuation of the race, and for handing 
down from generation to generation the best that has 
been wrought out and won from contending forces in 
the struggles and growth of the children of men. 

But the best and greatest of all is the development 
of the individual, the opportunity for the growth and 
Develop- ^^ unfolding of the human soul. The 
ment of the home is to furnish that environment which 
Individual. ^-^ allow the incipient man to come to his 
own estate. When the home is rightly thought of by 
each member, it will be so placed that the varied forces 

34 



The Institutions of Education 35 

playing upon the active Self will result in a develop- 
ment that will carry the human standard a little beyond 
that attained by the parent; it will be an improvement 
on the family type. The greatest need of the world is 
better men, of finer instincts, higher purposes, more 
abiding aspirations. For the development of a strong 
man there is no agency equal to a good home. This 
home must be protected from many of its self-styled 
friends, who are, though unwittingly, often enemies. 

A score of forces in modern life are contending against 
the home. There are the many outside Enemies 
demands which make it almost impossible of the 

for the members of the family to enjoy the Home, 

ideal home life about their own fireside. 

There is Society, with its inexorable claims; the 
Club, with ties noble and ignoble, with its ends whole- 
some or vicious; Politics, with its pressing demands; 
Business, marked by fierceness of competition and a 
pitiless exaction which allows no rest; School, which 
demands the time of the children day and evening; the 
Church, with its meetings every night in the week and 
all day Sunday, some of them of questionable utility 
from the standpoint of character making. We are a 
people who congregate and organise, until it has come 
to be said that wherever two or three Americans are 
gathered together there are a president and a secretary. 
We organise and organise, and each new organisation 
makes a series of new demands. 

There is the great boarding-house problem, which has 



36 Up Through Childhood 

come to be one of the mighty forces to substitute arti- 
ficial ties for the more exalted natural ones. This life 
begets a superficial way of acting and thinking. Any 
man will fight for his hearthstone, but where is the 
man who will fight for his boarding-house? It is a 
serious personal lack when the rich love of the human 
soul cannot strike deep its roots in a strong, nourishing 
soil which promises permanence. Herein rests one of 
the greatest advantages in owning property : character 
gains an element of permanence, if it has time to grow 
without being disturbed. But the abuse comes when, 
instead of owning property, it owns us and we become 
slaves to our possessions. Many a man has begun with 
a home which was at first a place of shelter and com- 
fort, but as his goods have increased little by little, his 
possessions have come to own him. Remember that 
the man who wants little is always rich, and the man 
who has much is not always rich. Sometimes a man 
owns a house: sometimes the house owns the man. It 
is better for the man to own the house, and for him 
to bear in mind that a very big man can live in a very 
small house. This life can give at best one thing — 
contentment. To illustrate: 

*' I once had a summer place," said Dr. Shrady, 
** named * Pine Ridge,' seven or eight miles north of 
Kingston. There were pleasant roads round about, 
and almost every day I went out with a team, driving 
myself. One day when driving alone on Albany Ave- 
nue, Kingston, a butcher's boy, mistaking me for a 



The Institutions of Education 37 

coachman, and seeing I had no companion, hailed me, 
shouting: * Say, John, can't you give a fellow a lift?' 
'How far are you going?' I asked. 'Only out to 
General Smith's,' replied the boy. The urchin sprang 
to my side when I nodded my head, and after we had 
started said: ' Whose rig is this? ' 

" ' Dr. Shrady's,' I replied. 

" ' Oh, yes. That fellow from New York. He lives 
in ' ' Pine Ridge ' ' by the river. Do you work for him ? ' 

"'Yes.' 

' ' ' How much does he give you ? * 

" ' My board and clothes.' 

"'Is that all? Well, he gives you pretty good 
clothes, but you could get more than that. Major 
Cornell's coachman gets his board and clothes and $30 
a month besides. How long have you been working 
for this man Shrady ? ' 

" ' Ever since I was a boy.' 

" ' Never worked for anybody else ? ' 

" ' No.' 

" ' Well, maybe that explains it. What do you do 
for him ? ' 

" ' Oh, anything he wants me to. I wash him and 
dress him in the morning and then I take him down to 
breakfast and feed him. During the day I am his man 
of all work, and when night comes I undress him and 
put him to bed.' 

" ' Great Scott! Is he as old as that ? ' 

" ' Oh, he 's about my age.' 



38 Up Through Childhood 

" * Must be an awful lazy fellow, is n't he ? Do you 
like him ? ' 

** * Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. Oc- 
casionally I think he 's a very good fellow; then again 
I see him do very foolish things. That makes me 
want to run away and hire out to some one else.' 

"'Why don't you?' 

*' ' Oh, it 's no use; I cannot. I have to be satisfied.' 

"'Well,' indignantly asserted the boy, 'I think 
you 're a fool. But here 's where I get off. Come 
over to Kingston any day, John, and you can get a job 
with better wages than your board and clothes. ' 

* * Then I bade him good-bye, knowing that he was 
mistaken. Every one must work for himself — he can- 
not run away, — and the best wages he can get will be 
his board and clothes — with variations." 

There is a great need for right ideals and a high 
conception of the duty and opportunity of the Ameri- 
can home; for right ideals of this sacred institution and 
of its wonderful possibilities in the training of children 
to be definite, positive forces in carrying forward the 
world's work. The home is the greatest school of all, 
and all other institutions, social, educational, or re- 
ligious, must stand aside to allow the chief one op- 
portunity for its perfect work. But the home must 
recognise its responsibility. 

The School 

' ' The teacher is the soul of the school. ' ' This is a 



The Institutions of Education 39 

true saying, and just in proportion to the richness of 

the teacher's life, the fineness of his thought, the touch 

of his aspiration, and the nobleness of his 

The 
nature will these excellences be found in Teacher 

the character of the child. Imitation is the the Soul of 
child's great characteristic, and through the 
agency of habit we may by means of ideals and intel- 
ligent practice form the child's character as we will. 
And yet the school is more; it affords an opportunity 
for practice in community life, for putting into actual 
service those virtues and excellences which will form 
such a pleasing characteristic in the adult when the 
child that we admire, love, and cherish comes to ma- 
turity. Here is found the opportunity for recognition 
of the rights of others, for the development of that 
larger selfhood which counts service one of its highest 
privileges. Here lies the beginning of society, the dis- 
position to adapt oneself to the needs and happiness of 
his fellows, a disposition to avoid some of the narrow 
and petty and backward steps in human association. 
But the school has its limitation. It is very artificial. 
Demands there made are less vigorous, less forceful, 
and sometimes less wholesome than those found in 
actual life. The school world is often so unlike the real 
world that it leaves a false impression of man's aim in 
life, and sometimes it gives a wrong ideal. 

I have known hundreds of teachers, many of these in 
their school life, and not a few in their private and 
home life, and do not hesitate to afiirm that, all told, 



40 Up Through Childhood 

there is not to be found in any other calling a larger 
number of patient, conscientious, self-denying men and 
Character women who are giving to their calling not 
of only time and thought, but the richest love 

Teachers. q£ hearts that often go alone because of 
these changing ties. 

But the school is a burden bearer! Whether it be 
lack of manners, lack of intelligence, lack of religion, 
or lack of sterling honesty, we are too often disposed to 
charge it all upon the school. 

Society 

Society is a growth, and the form depends upon the 
The One social ideal which prevails. The independ- 
End and ent spirit of democracy among us has been 
the Many, adverse to the highest development of the 
social ideal. 

Every man has acted for himself Business and 
Society have glorified competition, but it has been at 
fearful cost. The more thoughtful men in business 
have seen the economy of combination; the more kindly 
women in society have seen the goodness of helping 
others, and found to their joy that acting thus they rose 
the faster. The ends are not opposed. The highest 
development of every one is for the common good of 
all. There are signs of a truer recognition of the work 
which society may do for its members. And recog- 
nised or not, its influence is positively all-powerful. 



The Institutions of Education 41 

As time goes on, we may hope to discover better meth- 
ods of organisation and less expensive means of reach- 
ing the high end of mental and spiritual culture for the 
individual, and so for all. 

Society is a real educator, and this work is wrought 
not alone nor chiefly by the definite lessons which it 
sets out to inculcate, but by the atmosphere 
with which it surrounds the growing child. g. 
His ideals of life, his purposes, his methods 
of accomplishing these purposes, all are modified by 
the powerful influence of the social instinct and social 
requirements which impress themselves upon the Self 
day by day. I am continually impressed with the 
thought of that paramount influence which we call en- 
vironment. It comes like a rolling sea upon the shore, 
returning again and again to impinge upon individu- 
ality. If the Self be strong, the struggle will call out 
the best, and there will be a growth to be approved; if 
the Self be weak, these external forces will subdue it 
and render all its accomplishments cheap and common- 
place. Not alone the social and spiritual demands of 
society, but the economic demands play a large part in 
the development of character. 

One's occupation should be a strong factor in the de- 
velopment of the soul life. There are two reasons 
for following any particular work, a good 

reason and the real one. Too often the real ««4.;«„ 

pation. 

reason is an economic one, which calls upon 

the man to perform services of a kind that break the 



42 Up Through Childhood 

highest law of his being. Money he must have. He 
cannot escape, and he ought not to escape those de- 
mands by which he is to render service, to create value, 
in return for what he receives from the world. But it 
is little to be desired that a man should coin his heart's 
blood, his noblest aspirations, for the cheap things by 
which to live. If our economic life were on the right 
basis, nearly one-half of our waking hours each day 
would be spent in physical exercise. Not perhaps in 
exclusive physical labour, but in labour so far physi- 
cal that we should find health for the body and rest for 
the mind. The value of both mental and physical ex- 
ercise in turning one's life in a way to provide for the 
health of the whole being cannot be underrated, and if 
the occupation does not afford sufficient scope for the 
exercise of both parts of the nature, then there must be 
enough leisure to make it possible to supply that need 
outside of the required field of labour. 

Our plan of education ought to provide for steady 
practice in promptness and accuracy. We are coming 
The more and more to recognise the great value of 

Motor the motor side of our lives; to have a keener 

Side. recognition of the place of action; action 

subject to will, and action with the aid of the intellect 
in the daily development of character. It is now recog- 
nised that no thought is complete until it has been ex- 
pressed in action. We have not only the eye- minded 
child and the ear-minded child, but the motor-minded 
child, who must express the ideas and impulses of his 



The Institutions of Education 43 

inner life in some form of deed. For the eye-minded 
and the ear-minded people, the school forms of expres- 
sion are often sufficient; but for the motor-minded per- 
son, some kind of action is absolutely necessary for the 
best expression of himself and the greatest development 
of his powers. There are many people whose whole 
nature cries out to do rather than to be or to say. 
They are those who are born to pay in doing; and we 
can no longer rob them of their heritage. Besides, the 
world needs doers as well as thinkers; and it is the 
problem of the teacher to provide, for children of this 
kind, abundant opportunity for activity. It must, too, 
be that kind of activity which has in itself large worth. 
No child wants to spend his time and thought on doing 
work that is of no value. *' Do the things that are 
worth while," should be a motto for early childhood 
and for later life. It will beget a seriousness of mind 
and an earnestness of action that will lead directly to- 
ward the accomplishment of worthy results. No man 
of the right spirit is willing to wheel an empty wheel- 
barrow day after day simply for wages; and any teacher 
who keeps his students, young or old, merely marking 
time is guilty of a great moral wrong. He is doing his 
part to vitiate the right values, and to establish the 
habit of industriously doing nothing, which is one of 
the greatest curses of our time. 

The employer in all the higher walks of life expects 
and demands of his employee prompt and hearty serv- 
ice, but he cares quite as much for the spirit in which 



44 Up Through Childhood 

it is rendered as he does for the absolute service itself. 
We have hardly got down to the true foundation of 
The work. It has long been regarded as a thing 

Spirit of to be avoided, if possible; but, in truth, 
®^^^^®* work is a necessary condition of health and 
life. It provides for the development of body, mind, 
and soul. Industrial conditions are in many places so 
hard that it requires all of one's effort simply to earn a 
living. That has led to a wrong view of the scope and 
purpose of labour. The man who works is the man who 
creates, and in his work he should find that condition 
which will develop his soul, insure him health, and 
give him the sense of being a real contributor to the 
progress of his kind. The idea has come down to us 
that the garden of Kden was a paradise because man 
did not have to work; but the reading is, "And the 
I/ord God took the man, and put him into the garden 
of Kden to dress it and to keep it. ' ' He was there to 
take joy in the beauty of the garden and in the fruits 
of his labour. The world still has much of the drudg- 
ery; but there is a large field for a wholesome and in- 
spiring activity, for a kind of work which makes for 
the joy of life, a work in which the products shall be 
worth the efibrt, a work which one does with the free 
purpose of his soul in order that he may express him- 
self by reaction on material things. It finds expression 
in the joy of the gardener in the beauty of the rose, in 
the pride of the orchardist in his luscious fruits, in the 
thrill of the musician in the divine harmony which he 



The Institutions of Education 45 

has created, in the joy of the artist in the beauty which 
rises in the path of his brush; it is the joy of work and 
the beauty of creation which give charm to service. 
The spirit of the artist in the toiler consecrates the 
work to highest uses. 

With the large place of machinery in modern life, 
man has been released from much of the drudgery, and 
may be more and more a working force in spiritual do- 
mains. All the surroundings have need to be such as 
will secure his greatest efficiency as a spiritual worker. 
Not least among these is the spirit of hearty service 
that reaches toward better things; the true religious 
spirit indeed permeates the whole field of service and 
makes one strong beyond the strength of bone and 
muscle. It is the heroic spirit that prevails. 

There is a large service which society may render 
the individual in the opportunity for the development 
of feeling. Feeling constitutes one of the Develoo- 
great forces in the individual life, and makes ment of 
its subject valuable just in proportion as it Feehng. 
is directed by judgment and will. The heart is a 
mighty factor in all executive lines, and gives vigour, 
grace, and effectiveness to whatever is worth doing in 
any sphere outside of the daily material demands. 

Government 

The primary purpose of government is to administer 
justice; whatever other office it may assume, there 



46 Up Through Childhood 

must be a serious and well directed attempt to admin- 
ister justice. For the growth of the individual and 

of the nation there is no function more im- 
Prim&rv 
Puroose portant than this. The government should 

afford protection to the citizen, and a sense of 
security, without which the highest development of the 
individual life is impossible. It is the office of govern- 
ment to promote the common welfare, to provide for the 
highest general and individual good, to make possible 
to individuals in a community those things which can- 
not be enjoyed by one when acting alone; all these 
contribute to the greater growth of the Self. Every 
community has something more or less well defined, 
which people call public spirit, and just in proportion 
as that manifests itself, and receives recognition in in- 
dividual life, will the child fill his place in the social 
order. 

In our country the act of governing educates, be- 
cause it keeps before the mind of the student the great 
questions of human rights, and brings into frequent 
and recognised contrast those interests which are the 
concern of all, and those other interests which are the 
concern of the few. In the great tide of national life, 
we are likely to forget that no man is really a patriot 
unless true to his own community, and that the high- 
est service he can render to the State is to be a good 
citizen in his own neighbourhood. Again and again 
the election of the right councilman or school trustee is 
of greater importance to the community than is the 



The Institutions of Education 47 

election of the President of the United States. Not 
that the one should receive less attention than now, 
but that the other should receive more. 

The Church 

All through the ages, the Church has been one of 
the great conservative forces. The pages of history 
and the experiences of men have laid away ^ q^^_ 
the lessons of the greatest value; but any servative 
close examination of the history of the Force. 

Church will show that it has been one of the most fruit- 
ful fields of ignorance, tyranny, and oppression. To- 
day the modern Church is divided into scores of sects, 
each striving to surpass or overthrow its rivals. In 
many cases religious truth is so diluted that there is 
but a small part of it in the local organisation. We 
have good need to go again to the sources of our 
Christian faith, and ask of the Master himself the les- 
sons he would teach to the children of men. In our in- 
dustrial and commercial life we have not begun to apply 
the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. Not only 
this, but the Church has assumed that these cannot be 
applied, and demands that its ministers so preach to 
the people as to keep them in good conscience by urg- 
ing them to observe but the petty requirements of law, 
while allowing them to neglect the great principles 
which Jesus came to do and to teach. See how far we 
have gone from the Master's teaching! 



48 Up Through Childhood 

Christ said: " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs 
is the kingdom of heaven." But we say: " Blessed is 
the man that carries his head high, and assumes virtues 
and worth which he does not have. If you do not 
speak well of yourself, who will speak well of you? " 

Christ said: ** Blessed are the meek, for they shall 
inherit the earth." But we say: " Blessed is the man 
who sounds his own trumpet before him; it is the man 
who advertises himself that wins. The humble are 
tramped upon." 

Christ said: " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God." But we say: ' * The man who tells a low 
story is a jolly fellow," and if he steps aside from the 
path of purity, * 'A man ought to have a little liberty. ' ' 
However base his conduct, we forthwith restore him 
to good society, our best homes welcome him with a 
smile of approval, or at most a sigh of weak excuse. 

Christ said: *' Blessed are the peacemakers, for they 
shall be called the sons of God. " But we say: ' * Blessed 
is the man with the chip on his shoulder, for he rides 
by unmolested. He shall rush into wars near and far, 
and at the end his nation will give him a triumph." 

Christ said, " Ye are the salt of the earth," but with 
it he couples the statement, that when the salt has lost 
its savour ** it is thenceforth good for nothing but to 
be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men. ' ' 

Christ said, " Ye are the light of the world," but the 
light has been put under a bushel and those who should 
walk by it are now groping in the deep darkness. 



The Institutions of Education 49 

It was also he who said: " Except your righteous- 
ness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and 
Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom 
of heaven. ' ' 

The prayer and conference meetings have a value not 
to be underrated, and contribute in their own way to the 
quickening and development of individual The 

life. But unfortunately they are counted Spiritual 
the spiritual thermometer of the Church. mometer 
It is greatly to be lamented that there is no Idea. 

dynamometer to test the motor forces. It is assumed 
indeed that all who like to work like also to pray in 
public; nothing can be more untrue. There are at least 
three distinct types of temperament, and not more than 
one of these finds its highest gratification in the public 
church life. 

From the time of the Middle Ages until the present, 
the emphasis has been laid upon the meditative side of 
Christianity. The ideals here established, ^ike Pew 
and the requirements here imposed have ap- Like 

pealed most strongly to the emotional type '^^^^^ ®^' 
of character. In the missionary field there has often 
been an abundance of love for action, but the general 
belief that there should be a radical separation between 
sacred and secular things has closed this line of activity 
for the local churches; and, as a result, those tempera- 
ments which express themselves chiefly through action 
have not found in the Church that which their nature 
demands. This impulse toward action is stronger in 



50 Up Through Childhood 

men than in women; consequently women have found 
in the Church place for the satisfaction of some of the 
deepest demands of their natures; while in many cases 
men have not found such a field, but have absolutely 
been restrained from the manifestation of those elements 
which make for vigorous and active righteousness. 
As a result, men have become a minor factor in the 
churches. Since women have constituted a majority 
of the congregation, it is perfectly natural that those 
elements which women most approve and admire should ? 

be emphasised in the pulpit. Woman's greatest service > 

to society and in the scope of human life is to praise 
aright, and her praise has determined to a great degree 
the character of the teaching which should be given in 
the pulpit and in the conference meeting. Accordingly, 
religion has taken on much of gentleness and charity, 
and forgotten the virile elements of strength and truth. 
There is no real reason why the highest and finest type 
of Christian character may not at the same time be 
marked by great vigour; but from the time of the 
Revolution until the most recent years, the Church has 
occupied less than its rightful place in the social and 
political life of the community. Before the Revolution, 
the Church, and particularly the minister, was the 
most important element in colonial life; but the tradi- 
tions of the Church reached back to England. Many 
ministers had been educated there, and not only the 
traditions but their love reached back to the mother 
country. Then came the separation, and in the long 



The Institutions of Education 51 

struggle for American independence many a minister 
found himself on what afterward proved to be the 
wrong side of the conflict. Not a few of the Revolu- 
tionary fathers were lawyers and men engaged in walks 
of life other than the ministry. The ministers had 
failed, and the sceptre fell from their hands to be taken 
up by the lawyers, who have held it ever since. Public 
activity and the dominant social interests found their 
centre elsewhere than in the churches. From that time 
on minor forces and inferior agencies have determined 
what should be thought and done inside the Church 
and out. For illustration on the side of the Church, 
take the young people's movement. When it came, 
the time was ripe, and it spread over the whole country; 
but in a short time the meetings had withdrawn from 
the regular life of the Church the vigour of youth 
which is so much needed there; and in not a few cases 
the young people's meeting was invaded by older peo- 
ple, who insisted upon a stereotyped Christianity with 
the full adult and feminine interpretation of its life, 
which would allow comfortable quarters only for those 
who were endowed with the emotional temperament. 

No sane man will deny that the Church is one of the 
truest and best agencies for righteousness among us, 
nor can he shut his eyes to the fact that it The 

is not meeting the needs of the time. The Church 

does not 
people have gone away from it; it must re- jvieet the 

organise in its real purpose and methods. Needs. 

Thousands of the children of the Church grow up and 



52 Up Through Childhood 

fall away without being pledged to righteousness, and 
often without thought of making that the supreme con- 
cern of their lives. There is no better test than that 
proposed of old by the Master, "By their fruits ye shall 
know them." The moment we think of the work of 
the Church there rings in our ears, * 'These ought ye 
to have done, and not to leave the other undone." 

There never was a time when the test of actual serv- 
ice, the value in use, was applied so pitilessly as now 
to all human institutions. The Church has made a 
long and losing warfare against science, she has stood 
with the conservative and non-progressive forces in 
education, she even long defended some of the crying 
evils in the social life of the times, including slavery 
and the rum traffic; but this is the hour of her leader- 
ship if she will gather the forces and lead to victory. 
On every side there is seen a new interest in social 
needs and social institutions. There is a disposition to 
lay aside the blind observance of ecclesiastical forms, 
if by any means life may be brought to the people. 
The slow, decrepit hand of the ages seems to be 
weakening its grasp on her, and there is large hope of 
a new, strong, and wholesome movement which shall 
redeem the people, which shall sanctity human life 
and exalt human character. 

Horace Mann said, " Let the next generation, then, 
be my client." 

The Church is already alert on this line, and may 
find in the Sunday-school one of the most helpful and 



The Institutions of Education 53 

effective agencies to usher in the kingdom of God; but 
it is not the Sunday-school of the past, nor even of the 
present. The Sunday-school must be planned to meet 
the great needs of the time; the need for the old type 
of school has passed away, and with it that type of 
school must go. 



CHAPTER IV 

"THK INSTITUTIONS OF E^DUCATiON — Continued 

In these days when everything is brought to the test 

of results, when people seek to determine by experience 

^, ^ the profit in any course of action, it is nat- 
The Test. 

ural that the Sunday-school should be called 
in question. I am not insensible to the great work that 
it has done, nor to the fact that it has called thousands 
from darkness to light, and given impetus to the re- 
ligious life of many a growing Christian; but just as 
we examine the day-school with keenest scrutiny to 
determine the educational waste, and just as we cens- 
ure everything which yields small returns from large 
investments, so must we look upon the Sunday-school 
and bring it to the test. 

The first great charge to be made against the Sun- 
day-school is that of wrong aim. The Sunday-school 

„_ has been in fact, if not in theory, held to be 

Vvfong 

Conception ^ place for social gathering, for a kind of 

of the moral preaching to children, with a vague 

Work 

hope that although the teaching was done in 

a haphazard way the results must necessarily be good 
because the intention was good. It is often held that 

54 



The Institutions of Education 55 

attendance at Sunday-school is necessarily a virtue. 
That is very far from the truth. In many cases the 
child would be better off not to enter the atmosphere 
which in not a few schools is characterised by a degree 
of irreverence and weak sentimentality subversive of all 
true character. The great aim should be the develop- 
ment of sturdy, right-thinking manhood and woman- 
hood, and whoever falls short of this or fails to minister 
to this end is blind to the very purpose and life of the 
institution. 

There can be no sure hope of success until we set 
before ourselves a definite aim and seek to accomplish 

that in a common-sense way. It is necessary 

Lack of 
to analyse pretty closely those things which Definite- 
are present in a forceful, noble character. "ess of 
Having considered this, we find ourselves 
in readiness to do something to accomplish this work. 
Further, we must take into consideration the character 
of the child as he is; and in the Sunday-school we must 
take into consideration the natures and tendencies of 
the children, or at least of the leaders of opinion in the 
Sunday-school. 

We must never lose sight of the fact that the most 
important in all work which has character-making for 
its end is not the curriculum, but the per- 
sonal element: that is, the direct inspiring ^^^^^^^^ *" 

Curriculum, 
influence of the living teacher. There is 

no way of making a truth prevail equal to that of 
incorporating it in an interesting personality. 



5^ Up Through Childhood 

There are two serious charges to be made against the 
school from the standpoint of curriculum. 

The first charge is this: Many things are offered 
which are not closely related to the life of the child. 
This results in two evils: i. The child does not learn. 
2. He forms the habit of receiving good things without 
any thought that they are to be practised in daily life. 
Our test has never been, ' 'Does this information suit the 
needs of the growing child?" but, "Is this in har- 
mony with the practice of our branch of the Christian 
Church ? " * * Will this meet the approval of the min- 
istry ? " "Is there a sufficient amount of Christianity 
in these things which we are teaching ? ' ' 

The second serious defect in the curriculum is the 
lack of a definite plan for practice in righteousness. 
* * Not he that repeateth the name, but he that doeth 
the will." The whole nature of the child cries for ac- 
tion. What do we offer ? Missionary meetings, prayer 
meetings, Bible verses — things good in themselves, but 
with words altogether out of proportion to deeds! 

We must meet this need for action in the Sunday- 
school, or lose the boys; the most of us prefer to lose 
the boys. It would not be proper, it would 

Z^^ , not comport with tradition, to have the child 

Choice. 

do the dozen and one things for which his 

nature is crying out; in short, we decree that if he can- 
not take our Sunday-school in our fashion with our 
interpretation of what is good for him, we stand to the 
idea that he may go to destruction, the faster the better, 



The Institutions of Education 57 

— and then we charge the whole thing up to his natural 
depravity, or original sin, or some other of the theo- 
logical scapegoats, which are really only poor exciises 
for our blindness or our stubbornness. In the theo- 
logical seminaries and among Sunday-school teachers 
the great emphasis is put upon the study of the Bible, 
instead of upon the study of the child. Religion did 
not come out of the Bible, the Bible came out of re- 
ligion; it is God's message to the soul of man. 

With very many teachers and superintendents the 
ideals are low. Many a superintendent holds his posi- 
tion because he is the man of influence in Lack of 

the community, or because he is able to con- Right 

., ^ r A ^ Officers 

tribute a large sum of money to some church ^^^ 

benevolence, and not because he is well quali- Teachers, 
fied to deal with children and to preside over the intel- 
lectual and spiritual processes of unfolding minds. 
Many a teacher does his work only because he gains a 
certain standing in the community, and he likes to 
comfort himself in the thought that he is doing some 
good on Sunda}^ to make up for the lack of vigorous 
adherence to high ideals through the week. The 
methods pursued in the Sunday-school are usually so 
far below those practised in the day-school that the 
children must have far less respect for the work there 
undertaken than for the work accomplished in the day- 
school. 

It is often urged that good ofiicers and teachers are 
not to be had; that the strong man and woman of the 



58 Up Through Childhood 

community will not give time to Sunday-school work. 
This is only in part true. When the Sunday-school 

seeks to do something worth while, strong 
Officers i^^n ^^^ women will help, gladly and will- 
may be ingly. Let the Sunday-school undertake 

work worthy of the best people in the com- 
munity, and these it may have. There are two things 
that must be set very definitely before Sunday-school 
officers and teachers. First, the teacher must secure 
tangible results; and, second, he must secure these in a 
satisfactory manner. The Sunday-school ought to be 
the Church at work for character in young and old. 
It is not a parade ground, but a field for the keenest 
and most thoughtful insight, a place for a deep inter- 
pretation of the great needs of child life, with all pos- 
sible efibrts of the religious organisation marshalled to 
meet these needs. We have been so long accustomed 
to ha7e things stand just as they are, and to accept 
the dictum that ' ' Anything which is done with a good 
motive is good, ' ' that it seems harsh to say that many 
of the best men and women in the Church are wearing 
themselves out in doing things for which they are ill- 
prepared, and some of them in attempting things 
which they could not do if they should live a thou- 
sand years. Our church, our Sunday-school, our 
young people's society, is organised chiefly to train the 
emotional type of human temperament, and not to 
meet the many sides of human character. 
Just at the age when the child is all alert for action, 



The Institutions of Education 59 

when he demands a field for the development of his en- 
ergies, and when, above all, he needs direc- No P - 
tion, when his nature is open, hungering vision for 
and thirsting for the spiritual life, we insist Action, 
upon a life of quietness, of steadiness, of propriety, a 
life of conformity, of stagnation, of death. 

It is a fatal fault to multiply societies and organisa- 
tions in the school, instead of allowing opportunity for 
more practical growth in right lines in fewer a Child's 

societies. I^et the general organisation be Religion 

and a 
wide in its outlook, and practical in its Man's 

methods. It must be suited to the child's Religion, 
needs. There is a wide difference between a child's 
religion and a man's religion; and if we are to believe 
that God has made the world right, it is probable that 
a child in his religion comes as near to pleasing the 
Father as does a man in his religion. A child neces- 
sarily does everything with a certain lack of finish. 
His religion is a part of his life. He has not lived long 
enough in the world to adjust himself wisely and care- 
fully, and, as a result, is guilty of many rather serious 
faults, from the standpoint of his elders. It is abso- 
lutely wrong to hold children to the same standards as 
adults. They should, for persons of their age, reach 
just as high standards as adults should reach; but the 
same standards should not be set. The child is full of 
spirit, energy, enterprise, and life. If we can get good 
deeds, noble impulses, and generous action from the 
child, we are going far toward the attainment of the 



6o Up Through Childhood 

ideal religion for him. The child must not be less noble 
than his age will warrant, but we must not force upon 
him the peculiarities and staid manners of adults. The 
greatest calamity that can befall a natural, healthy, 
growing child is to have his religious life forced, to 
insist upon picking open the delicate buds of character 
before they are sufficiently mature to blossom out into 
noble and beautiful words or deeds. The child is not 
in the introspective age. One must go far to find a 
wiser statement of the situation than these helpful 
words from President King: 

** . . . the kind of expression specially called 
for in religious education is active service for others. 
Any really useful work has here its religious value. 
To avoid pride and priggishness and introspection, 
especially in the case of younger children, it is probably 
distinctly better that this attempted service for others 
should not be in lines that could be thought to be 
peculiarly religious in the narrower sense. The simplest 
self-forgetful work for some practical cause — the cup 
of cold water in the name of a disciple — will meet the 
case. . . . Getting children thus to take an inter- 
est, for example, in the protection of animals, in the 
protection of the defenceless, in the cleanliness and 
beautifying of the town, in the cultivation and giving 
of flowers, is not without its value." 

lyife and character have their practical side; and 
whoever undertakes to work in religious things with- 
out attending to practical conditions will fail to do his 



The Institutions of Education 6i 

definite work. I know that we have hard conditions 

to meet, I know that the world is thoroughly wedded 

to the idea of religious institutions on the y. 

old lines; but there is a growing company Better 

of earnest men and women who have laid Way. 

aside preconceived notions, and who come day by day 

with open hearts to learn their lessons from the child 

and from the Master who said of the children, " Of 

such is the kingdom of heaven." And as these people 

wait in the presence of the Divine, there come to them 

a clearer vision and a finer insight, and they are willing 

to let go all pretensions and show, if they may have 

the reality. They are first sincere with themselves, 

and then they find it easy and joyously successful to be 

sincere with the children that they try to teach. We 

must awake on this subject of religious teaching, and 

we must recognise that the greatest field of Christian 

work is with the young. 

I do not object to efforts for saving men and women 

who have gone astray — I rejoice heartily when the 

drunkard is reclaimed from his cup, or the 

I n -I • •-. f/- 1 -I The Time 

immoral one from his evil life, — but the same ^^ Work. 

energy that is spent to reclaim these would 
save a score of children from the need of such reclama- 
tion. For work in character, and to establish the 
kingdom of God, youth is the chosen time. " Where 
anything is growing, formation is a thousand times 
more valuable than reformation." It is now generally 
recognised that whatever is put into the mind of the 



62 Up Through Childhood 

youth of this generation will appear in the adults of the 
next. Accordingly, every genuine or pretended re- 
former seeks to put his special ideas into action in the 
school. '* The mind of the child is wax to receive, and 
marble to retain." In recent years we are coming to 
understand that adolescence has not only its peculiar 
temptations and dangers, but its marvellous oppor- 
tunities. It is then that the character of the boy may 
change its whole direction, and that his ideals may 
widely improve. To be sure, with right conditions, 
there ought to be a unity of growth from childhood to 
manhood; but nevertheless in many a life there is a 
striking change, and if this change takes place under 
the guidance of a strong, true, and wise person, the 
boy wdll have such a vision of the world, such a con- 
sciousness of his duties, and such a devotion to his 
opportunities as will make him quite another creature. 
The girl too will find revelations of which she had not 
dreamed; life will for her take on a deeper and richer 
meaning. She will live her ideals with a patience and 
a zeal and a self-forgetfulness which the earlier years 
of her life had neither known nor promised. Not alone 
youth, but childhood is the time to work. It is the time 
for the royal formation of life, thought, and character. 
The Sunday-school must occupy a wider field. It 
•pjjg must do a great deal of work on other days 

Larger than Sunday. As an institution, the Church 
is not doing half its duty to the young. 
With the large opportunity which now opens, to 



The Institutions of Education 63 

neglect the work which crowds upon us is criminal. 
We must provide for early childhood; here we have 
failed least. We must provide for the children under 
twelve years of age; here we have done not so badly. 
We must provide for the great company of youth and 
maidens between twelve and eighteen years of age; here 
we have failed miserably. We must further meet the 
deep soul-hunger in young men and young women 
above eighteen years of age; of this we have scarcely 
begun to think. We must be rid of our forms, of our 
prejudices, of our blindness, and humbly and simply 
and earnestly, as .does a little child, go forward to 
learn those lessons which are continually taught to 
open-minded disciples by Him who came to give us 
the more abundant life. 

But how can this change be brought about? We 
must have somebody whose business it is to study the 
field and adapt means to ends. Of all men, -pj^g Ways 
the one for this place is the pastor in the of 

smaller churches, and the assistant pastor in °^ *"^* 
the larger ones. He must be a man of good education, 
of wide experience, of rich training of mind and heart; 
his first work must be the training of the young. Call 
this man what we may, he is to be a paid superintend- 
ent, who can give his time, thought, and energies to 
the highest development of character in the people 
whom he serves. His heart must be open to every 
good impulse, ready to welcome every new idea and 
every leading of the Divine Spirit. He will be a man 



64 Up Through Childhood 

of robust common-sense, who will put all ideas, 
theories, and propositions to the test, and having 
proved all, hold fast to that which is good; above and 
beyond all these things, he will be a man who sin- 
cerely loves children. There is no love that is abso- 
lutely valuable except the love that instinctively and 
spontaneously goes out to the individual child. The 
world is to be saved not in masses, but a human soul, 
carrying the torch of God, must pass the light to an- 
other human soul, and so on until the whole army 
have lighted their torches and are ready to go forth to 
dispel the darkness. His is the work of organising all 
the forces in the community which can be made to 
serve the development of character in that community. 
It is a very poor neighbourhood which does not have 
in it a few people who, if their energies were properly 
directed, could be a means of great help to many, if not 
all, in the neighbourhood. Our superintendent will 
gather the forces of righteousness, and see that they 
are used in the right way. In short, he will organise 
the life of the community to work through the Sunday- 
school, and individually, to improve the character of 
men and of society. 

Th A* ^^ ^^ ^^^ work of the Sunday-school to 

of the improve hfe, by : 

Sunday- j Knowledge. — Its special duty is to teach 

those things which will give aspiration and 

insight; the regular meetings of the school may well 

have for their major purpose the great end of planting 



The Institutions of Education 65 

and fixing ideals and adapting these to the life of every 
day. 

2. Practice in Righteousness. — It must definitely plan 
for the practice in righteousness. If one is to have 
skill in right doing, he may gain it chiefly by doing 
right things. Only by intelligent practice, practice 
usually under guidance, may one hope to reach any 
high degree of excellence in doing those things 
which are best worth while. Happy indeed if by 
means of the Sunday-school the student may be 
carried somewhat farther in his knowledge of the art 
of Hfe. 

3. Supervision. — The Sunday-school may very prop- 
erly take general oversight of the conduct of its mem- 
bers and of their development in all lines that will help 
to make them efiicient and forceful agents in the world; 
of course, emphasising chiefly the establishment of 
high aims and wise means of attaining these. Is there 
any reason why the regular Sunday session of the 
school should not be generally occupied with reports 
and counsel touching the right ways of doing good 
things day by day? Sunday will become the great 
gathering day for consulting about the spiritual inter- 
ests of the community, a day in which men and women, 
boys and girls, shall not only gather new strength for 
the work of life, but shall be led to understand more 
fully the opportunities, duties, and responsibilities 
which their places impose upon them. Ways of work 

will be discussed, reports of successes — yes, and often 
5 



66 Up Through Childhood 

reports of defeat; plans will be here wrought out by 
which real service may be rendered to many another. 
This will be the meeting day, and the Sunday-school 
will be the meeting place for counsel on all the larger 
interests that touch deeply individual lives in the 
community. 

It has a large opportunity, for it represents the 
focusing of the religious life of the community as ap- 
plied to the young. Again and again the 
^ ?" teacher may say, ' * Only thirty minutes, 
only thirty minutes!" but it may be 
thirty minutes of supreme opportunity. If the 
teacher and officers have won the child's respect 
and affection there may be many days of general, ordin- 
ary, helpful teaching; but come there will, and come 
there must, the high and holy time of supreme oppor- 
tunity. The child has been coming from week to 
week with the purpose and expectation of discussing 
religious things. He feels that this discussion is proper 
and desirable, and, when old enough to think seriously 
of the matter, really welcomes all the instruction and 
encouragement which will help him in working out his 
little problems of life. Many a teacher restrains him- 
self from the opportunity for strong, helpful religious 
teaching. But religious culture meets a definite need 
in the child's nature, and to withhold it is to deprive 
him of his birthright. The Sunday-school should pro- 
vide for oversight, for instruction, and for practice in 
righteousness. 



The Institutions of Education 67 

The Organisation 

It should be carefully and strongly organised, with 
every officer in his special place only because he is best 
fitted for that place. The wealth there to be sought is 
not the wealth of stocks, bonds, or banks, but it is the 
wealth of manhood, of fine character, of delicate in- 
sight, of purity, of the power of the immortal spirit. 

Valuable as social standing is, the officer is to be 

chosen not only for that, but for richness of nature, 

for real love for his fellow man, for power to do 

good. Not alone nor chiefly shall he be chosen for 

ability to speak in public, but more than all for his 

sterling, active, aggressive character as a worker of 

righteousness. 

The Officers 

The superintendent should be a man of common 

sense, of large view, of earnest piety, of deep 

insight, of real sympathy and unfeigned love T^® Super- 
intendent, 
for humanity, — a love which, because of its 

nobleness and naturalness, invites his fellow men. 

He needs to be a man of common sense, because in 

the Sunday-school are found men who, with the best 

intentions, are disposed to pursue questionable ends, or 

worthy ends by questionable means, and it is his duty 

to protect the child from the experiments of these 

" faddists." He must be a man of large view, that he 

may see the end from the beginning, that he may 

know how minor aims may be wisely subordinated to 

the larger aim, and that he may recognise the greatness 



68 Up Through Childhood 

of the work which he has undertaken. Every thought- 
ful parent has regretted that now and then some leader 
of his child in religious things has on some important 
topic taken a position which the child in his frankness 
and innocence feels called upon to criticise. Surely 
there can be no stronger plea for piety in the man who 
is both an example and a guardian. In life's work, 
and particularly in religious work, many things are not 
what they seem, and there is the need of deep insight 
to recognise the budding possibility in the nature of the 
slowly unfolding child. How cheap and common are 
the expressions of sympathy, but those who realise the 
value of the genuine article will not question the su- 
preme value of the high and fine and beautiful senti- 
ments which work so mightily among the children of 
men, opening closed doors, and admitting a flow of 
thought and feeling which comes to heal. This is the 
supreme test. No matter how correct the life, no 
matter how noble the intention, if there be not a touch 
of human sympathy, the superintendent must fail to 
do his work. No correct automaton, no finely adjusted 
intellectual machine, no manipulator of words only, can 
grapple to his heart with hooks of steel his fellow men. 
Granted an assistant superintendent who subordin- 
Assistant ^^^^ himself to his superior, and has for his 
Superin- supreme purpose to serve both the school 
tendent. ^g ^^ institution and the students as indi- 
viduals, and there can be no question of the need of an 
assistant superintendent even in the small schools; in 



The Institutions of Education 69 

the larger schools several will be needed, each to have 
his special duties. The ordinary needs will suggest 
the persons for the places; but there is one place which 
is to my mind that of supreme need and for which in 
the larger schools I have not yet seen any one ap- 
pointed, and that is just for general acquaintanceship 
with the needs, desires, and purposes of the individual 
students. Perhaps the classes might be wisely divided, 
and two or more persons make a definite effort to be- 
come acquainted with every student in his section. It 
will thus allow for the personal touch of the ofiicials 
with the individual student. 

The secretary should be a live, energetic, active, 
business-like man, the maker of tables, the analyser of 
conditions, a man who can arrange, classify, 
and interpret the changing manifestations secretary 
of the school's life as set forth in figures. 
In more than one sense, he is the superintendent's 
right-hand man, and not only keeps tab on the general 
conditions of the school's purpose and life, and its 
growth and manifestations as an institution, but in 
himself, or by means of his assistants, follows the life 
and growth of the individual students, and as they go 
out to other homes and take up work in new fields, pro- 
vides that they may receive a welcome in the new home, 
where otherwise they might long seem like strangers.^ 

' A letter to the Sunday-school near the student's new home 
may at once bring him friends and a welcome which it would 
take him months to win. 



70 Up Through Childhood 

The librarian has a particularly attractive and 

promising field. If he is a sensible man who knows 

and loves books, and who is restricted by no 

, .^ . traditions which will limit his suiting the 
Librarian. ° 

reading to the child's best tastes and growth, 
he can perform a work which is boundless in its results. 

It is a part of the librarian's business to provide for 
the development in spiritual taste, touching the finer 
literature at many points and bringing to the child's 
attention not only books worth knowing but the books 
of all time, which it is indispensable to know. 

In planning the curriculum it must never be for- 
gotten that character is the great end of all teaching. 
Teaching may fix principles and help to 

_ . , form ideals, but if is practice in rio^hteous- 
Curriculum. ^ '^ 

ness which makes character. Forbush says : 
" The Church must use freer, more varied, and more 
unconventional means than in the past. If some pious 
heart tremulously inquires of a given plan, ' Is there 
enough of Christ in it ? ' my straightforward rejoinder 
shall be, * Is there enough boy in it ? ' " The curricu- 
lum must very clearly consist of two parts. A part 
which furnishes knowledge and ideals, and a part 
which offers practice in righteousness. One of these 
is just as essential as the other. The Sunday-school 
curriculum has not yet been worked out, so far as I 
know, and indeed I question whether there can be a 
general ideal curriculum. Kach school must meet 
local conditions, and each school has its advantages 



The Institutions of Education 71 

and opportunities which should be considered in the 
preparation of the curriculum. 

In a general way it is very safe to say that the work, 
both as to teaching and practice, must be adapted to 
the varying ages of the different students. 

If we could be free from a number of the minor 
societies which take time and energy from j^^ie ideal 
the Sunday-school, I believe that that in- Sunday- 
stitution might fill a large place in the best School, 
life of the community. It has many advantages in its 
favour: 

1. In general the people are of something near the 
same social and intellectual standing. 

2. They have the same general ideals of faith and 
conduct. 

3. Their church life combines them into a kind of 
unity. 

4. They are likely to want about the same kind of 
personal development in their children. 

In the light of these advantages it seems to me that 
the Sunday-school occupies a vantage ground for the 
work of character training. But to do this perfect 
work it must have, in a position of influence and au- 
thority, a strong, true, earnest, unselfish man, who is 
gifted with insight, and has a breadth of culture which 
will enable him to advise wisely. 

He must be able and willing to avail himself of all 
agencies existing in the communities for the develop- 
ment of the children. The Sunday-school will then 



72 Up Through Childhood 

seek to supplement othe;- educational agencies which 
the community affords, and will have for its special 
_ „ purpose the instruction in holy things 

All and practice in right living. This will re- 

Available quire a wise use of every agency available 
Agencies. . ,, . , , , ,. , 

in the community, and the establishment 

of such other agencies as may contribute to the 
purpose. In a general way the school must afford a 
place for all. It must include in its membership all 
who are in harmony with its general spirit and pur- 
pose, and are willing to avail themselves of the bene- 
fits which it offers, and to perform the duties which it 
imposes. In one community, the general education of 
the children will be abundantly provided for, and the 
school will there need only to supplement the education 
with manual training, agricultural teaching, or what- 
ever else may be of immediate benefit to the children 
concerned. In another community, the industrial and 
motor side may be fully provided for, and the children 
will need some little additional cultivation along the 
aesthetic side. This may be supplied by art classes, by 
a camera club, or by some agency contributing to the 
enlargement of the aesthetic instinct in the child's life. 
In another community, all these may be fairly provided 
for, and yet the social life may be unsatisfactory, being 
comparatively selfish and narrow or dominated by false 
ideals. Here the Sunday-school can now and then 
be a great reformatory institution, with all of these 
other elements to purify the moral tone, giving large 



The Institutions of Education ii 

emphasis to honour, truth, and integrity, and a stirring 

devotion to all righteousness. It is readily apparent 

that with this plan in mind the Sunday-school can 

never restrict itself to a service of one day in the week, 

but that it must have a general supervision of the life 

of the child, and must contribute largely, strongly, and 

steadily to the development of a wholesome character. 

And yet do I need to say that the superintendent or 

other agent in charge of this work must never forget 

that the home has the first claim, and that ^, „ 

The Home 

no kind of officiousness, however well in- Has the 
tended, is moral enough to be substituted First 

for the influence of any place that may half 
be called home, or if it lessens the real affection of 
the children for their natural guides and protectors? 
Where the scale of civilisation is low, there is the 
danger that this general helpfulness may tend to 
pauperise the community, and give the people a tend- 
ency to seek something other than the highest and 
truest life for their own and other children. There is 
a further caution. No kind of community life can be 
permanently and strongly helpful in our country unless 
founded upon the democratic principle. And these 
children, if they are to be helped by the Sunday-school, 
must somehow receive that large spirit which leads 
them to seek good for its own sake, and in all efforts 
strive for a large development of their own thought 
and life. Under this plan it may readily be seen that 
there is no general curriculum possible, and that the 



74 



Up Through Childhood 



Sunday-school which tries to take the exclusive educa- 
tion of the people of an3'^ community is attempting some- 
thing which it has no right to claim, and for which it 
is not at all equipped. 



I 



PART II 
THE TEACHER 



75 



CHAPTER V 

THB TEACHER AND HIS WORK 

It is already recognised that the teacher is here con- 
sidered not as a dispenser of knowledge but as an agent 
in the making of character. In the large -^^^ 

view of a teacher's work we can recognise Teacher's 
no difference in the purpose of the Sunday- Work, 
school teacher and that of the day-school teacher. 
With both, character is the large aim, and the aim 
toward which all minor aims must tend. It is a 
teacher's privilege and duty to inspire. Because of 
his influence on the child, his life must be finer and 
higher than that of his pupils. It is his work to call 
out power, to lead each child to discover in his own 
nature powers of which he was before ignorant; in 
short, to make him more than he would have been 
without the teacher's quickening touch. The child is 
many-sided in his powers and in his possibilities, and 
the teacher who wisely calls out these in the many 
directions, discovers that in a very true sense he has 
been instrumental in making character. 

In a university in one of the Western States, it was 
noticed that one of the girls devoted herself very closely 

77 



78 Up Through Childhood 

to her work, and in every recitation paid earnest and 
constant attention. The instructor one day com- 
mended her for her unfailing devotion to 
Ambition duty. " Ah! " said she, *' I am determined 
for to make the most of the material that has 

' been given me. ' ' Hers was a good teacher, 
for with her the teaching process had wrought its per- 
fect work. Desire for excellence and for the full devel- 
opment of her powers had become a dominant influence 
in her life. To set the student on fire with this holy 
ambition, that he may reach the highest and noblest 
development, — this is a teacher's supreme business. 
" A teacher is one who has Head enough and Heart 
enough and Time enough and Liberty enough, to be a 
Master in the Kingdom of I^ife.'' 

Perhaps more than in any other field, the teacher of 
religious things is in danger of lacking the equipment 

of solid common-sense. It has been too 

Head 

_ , long believed that the field of morals is 

Enough. 

different from other fields, and that religious 
teaching will somehow take care of itself, if the motive 
is right. A large part of religious teaching is such as 
to demand constant apology from the head for the 
sentiments and beliefs of the heart. The teacher who 
is to be a Master in the Kingdom of Life must cull from 
every realm of nature. There is in literature nothing 
too high or fine; in history, nothing too broad, pro- 
found, or philosophic; in science, no lessons too in- 
tricate, and no illustrations too striking. All the 



The Teacher and His Work 79 

world is tributary; and just in proportion as lie is able 
to lay hold on knowledge and make it serve his pur- 
pose, so far is the teacher able to feel that the head 
serves its purpose in this office of mastership. 

But poor indeed is the service he can render if the 
head alone prevails. There is the rich, strong, not- to- 
be-denied call of the heart. We Americans 

love our friends, and love them dearly; but _ ^^^ 

Enoug^n. 

it is almost a national failing to repress our 
feelings, and rob those who lean upon us, by hold- 
ing back the best and finest that is in our natures. 
We may love our friends enough to die for them, 
but we would rather die than tell them so. A strange 
and perverse remnant, this, of an age when all simple 
and true natural feeling was counted as a sin! The 
teacher's heart must glow with a warm and an un- 
feigned love. It must have that fire of the soul 
which is too strong and too noble to be unwise, un- 
kind, or untrue. Love must permeate, penetrate, 
and dominate his life and thought. But this is 
not to be a pretended love. Of all h3^pocrisy there is 
none so abominable as that which pretends to an affec- 
tion which does not exist; and none so transparent, for 
a child will quickly know it, in spite of honeyed words, 
if the heart does not beat true. 

But it is not enough that the teacher have large 
equipment of mind and large equipment of Time 

heart, there must be time — time for the teach- Enough, 
er's thought to be applied to the work he has in 



8o Up Through Childhood 

hand; time for him to plan and think and ponder; 
time for him to stand face to face with the great prob- 
lems which each individual pupil presents to him in 
the character that is to be developed. He must have 
time to work out the fine and delicate process of in- 
fluence; he must not be in haste about the supreme 
things; he must realise that character is of slow growth, 
and that always and everywhere the things that are to 
be eternal must be wrought as under the eye of God. 
How large, how abiding, how infinite, his work! How 
long must be the time required! 

But a teacher also is one who has liberty. There 

must be no binding by the petty bonds of creed or sect, 

it must be understood that he is a dispenser 

Enoue-h ^^ ^^^^' ^^^^ ^^ comes in the spirit of his 
Master that his pupils — all his pupils — may 
have life, and have it more abundantly. He is an artist 
in the things of the soul, and he cannot be required to 
rest upon marks and grades and reward cards, upon 
numbering and counting, and even the saying of verses 
— from the Bible though they may be. I would not 
have him harrow up the thought of any pastor or 
* * father or mother in Israel ' ' ; but when he strongly 
and truly and intelligently gives himself to the work 
of teaching, he must not be bound, as to ideas or plans 
or doctrines, to say over after any of these men or 
women the stereotyped phrase, or deaden in form the 
action of life or thought. I have no excuse to offer for 
the teacher who plants in the mind of the child poisoned 



The Teacher and His Work 8i 

ideas, or seed-thoughts that are to bring forth the har- 
vest of sin; but for him who is in touch with the Divine, 
and, looking into the face of God, brings to the soul 
of the child messages fresh from the spirit world, there 
must be large liberty. To the church officer who 
would lay hands on work of this kind, we may utter 
the warning of the Psalmist : * * Touch not mine 
anointed and do my prophets no harm." 

But it must be said that the religious teacher, and 
particularly the teacher who is at work in the Sunday- 
school, has little time in which to touch and 
shape for eternity the character of the child. Time 

True enough, but there are a thousand 
things which make for success, and success in this 
very field. "Only thirty minutes," you say, *'only 
thirty minutes to mould a soul for eternity ? ' ' Yes, 
only thirty minutes, but it is thirty minutes of oppor- 
tunity. The child comes to the teacher expecting to 
be instructed in divine things, ready for an appeal to 
mind and heart and conscience, expecting to learn true 
and strong and worthy things, desiring sometimes, 
willing almost always, to have the teacher touch the 
deeper and better experiences of the week that is past, 
and arouse aspirations for the week that is to come. 
Then too this thirty minutes is not all of the teacher's 
time or influence. If he has taken hold upon the 
affections of the child, if he has laid siege to the citadel 
of the heart, reaching over many a slow dark hour of 
the days that are passed, the successful teacher has won 



82 Up Through Childhood 

the child's respect — his affection. Now, in the light 
of all that is at stake, what will he do with it in that 
thirty minutes ? With the understanding that the su- 
preme moment must sometime come, may he, can he, 
dare he, trifle ? You may teach to-day and next Sun- 
day and the Sunday after, and the lesson may go on in 
the same quiet way; but to the teacher who sees, there 
will one day come the token that the heart is ready, 
that the supreme moment has arrived; and a few words 
then wisely said, deeply placed, backed by the strength 
and courtesy and courage and impulse of the teacher's 
earnest life, will be engraved upon the child's mind 
forever. Resolves will then be taken which shall not 
fail, pledges made, perhaps only to the pupil's own 
heart, but to exercise an influence for all eternity; and 
if our teacher has been planning, growing, preparing 
for this hour, how fully he is ready, how richly pre- 
pared, how wisely equipped. Only thirty minutes, but 
to the child who has been led to assume the responsi- 
bilities of his own life and who longs for his own devel- 
opment, that is enough. Then comes the hour when 
character takes the holding turn. The direction given 
in that half hour in youth will reach to the shadows of 
old age. *'Sow a thought, and reap an act; sow an 
act, and reap a habit; sow a habit, and reap a character; 
sow a character, and reap a destiny. ' ' 

That teacher who has with striving wrought into 
his own nature, by the grace and mercy and power of 
God, integrity, strength, love, and gentleness, finds his 



The Teacher and His Work 83 

reward in that his influence is multipHed in the lives of 
his students. He sees the glory and beauty of the 

unfolding life; he finds accuracy and clear- 

The 

ness and strength, where before there was n , 
^ ' Reward. 

crudeness, dulness, and weakness. He finds 
a life which was once untrue, now mostly true; he finds 
a boyhood which was uncertain, and which many times 
disappointed him, opening into a manhood in which 
the right prevails, and into a character which outstrips 
himself — the very one to whose watchfulness and de- 
votion and unfailing faith its largest impulses may be 
due. Is it not enough that he who has planted finds a 
harvest of a hundred-fold ? Is it not enough that you, 
teacher, find in your students, as the years go by, a 
growth in manhood, in womanhood, a development of 
character which outstrips your own and promises well 
for the years that are to come ? 

But there is another side to this question; the teacher 
cannot help all. First, he is not wise enough ; he will 
sometimes fail to do the very thing that is 
crying out to be done. Let his heart be sad gj^^ 

as would be that of the physician who, with 
the patient at death's door, failed to give the medicine 
which might have cured. A carpenter who spoils the 
board for lack of knowledge or lack of skill, may cast 
it aside; but the teacher who, for lack of knowledge or 
lack of skill, has ruined a human soul must feel that 
he is the worst of bunglers. For all this kind of work 
there is nothing but a remorse which knows no balm. 



84 Up Through Childhood 

But there is another kind of defeat which one cannot 
help. There are some natures that are so different from 
Natures ours, born to be so antagonistic, set to an- 
that other key, that we can never help them; and 

®P^ • the only recourse is to place them under the 
care of a teacher differently constituted. Happy and 
wise is that superintendent or parent who shall be able 
to bring about without harm the change of a child 
from an environment where the teacher's influence 
harms, to one where the teacher's influence blesses. 
I^et me illustrate. 

In an English school the boys were busy with their 
lessons and their stolen play. The master, looking 
along the line, noticed that one boy shrank from his 
eye, and quickly turned his slate over. The school 
was dismissed for recess, and the boys went storming 
out to play. At once, the master stepped to the desk 
and, holding the slate to the light, read: 

** I do not like you. Doctor Fell, 
The reason why I cannot tell ; 
But this I know, and know full well, 
I do not like you, Doctor Fell." 

The reason why we may not tell, but it is a truth as 
patent as the sun in heaven, and one from which no 
amount of arguing and planning, hoping or praying, 
may release us. There is just one thing to do: change 
the teacher, or change the child. This need arises 
often, but many a child repels only because it has not 



The Teacher and His Work 85 

learned to love; patience and skill will find the lost 
chord and establish the harmony. Before deciding 
that the trouble is due to inborn antagonism, we will 
try every reasonable means to touch hands and hearts. 
Allowing for these disappointments and these fatal mis- 
takes, I know of no work that an angel might rather 
do. The teacher's work is a part of God's; it makes 
for character, which we believe to be eternal. ' ' As 
God lives, what is excellent is permanent." 



CHAPTER VI 

th:^ tejachejr's prejparai'ion 

In this age it would hardly seem necessary to argue 
the importance of preparation, but when one consid- 
Importance ^^^ ^^^ thousands who are willing to take 
of Pre- upon themselves the responsibilities and 
paration. obligations of training the young in spiritual 
things with small equipment and little disposition for 
advancement, he is astounded that the daring is so 
general and the sense of responsibility so light. It has 
been assumed that good intentions will alone cover all 
shortcomings and justify all neglect. Indeed, it is 
argued by people who have very fair education that 
there is no art of bringing up to virtue, and no general 
plan of training for character to the end that the child 
may become a worthy citizen of a spiritual kingdom. 
No one thinks it strange that a man who would work 
in iron must be carefully taught through a long and 
painstaking apprenticeship, that the carpenter must 
give time and thought that his hand may gain skill 
and that his mind may gain insight and judgment. 
The architect who would plan a house must have the 
best training that the schools and workers in his craft 

86 



The Teacher's Preparation 87 

can offer; but with what hardihood it is assumed that 
the teacher who plans for eternity, who would guide 
the child into a richer and higher growth and fit him 
to become a member of the spiritual kingdom, is able 
to accomplish this work on the meagre capital of good 
intentions! 

In recent times another problem has entered into this 
matter of religious teaching. The children in the day- 
school are now largely taught by trained ^j^^ n^^^, 
teachers, and are accustomed to have know- ful Com- 
ledge presented to their minds and appeals parison. 
made to their hearts with some degree of skill. When 
the religious teacher comes to them in a bungling or 
careless manner, he suffers by comparison, and the 
message which he brings is discounted. 

From the time of the Reformation it has been cus- 
tomary to teach the Bible instead of teaching the child, 
and we are just beginning to realise that ^-j^^ child 
not of itself is the Bible the means of salva- and the 
tion. There is great need for the careful Bible. 

study of the child nature, and not a study of little child- 
ren alone, but the study of all the stages from infancy 
to manhood. Just now the most interesting and at- 
tractive field of study is the period of adolescence, and 
this study seems to promise greater results to the re- 
ligious teacher than any other in which he may engage. 
This is the great period of conversion. Here the mind 
of the youth or maiden turns naturally to religious 
questions. The deeper problems of life are pressing 



88 Up Through Childhood 

upon the young mind for solution, and any help which 
the teacher may be able to give is sure of a hearty wel- 
come. There is great need for full and thoughtful 
preparation for this work. The teacher must be capa- 
ble, alert, earnest, and consecrated; the student must 
be earnest and receptive. 

The problem of moral instruction is a profound one, 
and there can be no safe and satisfactory teaching that 
^ does not take into account the largeness of 

Profound the question to be considered. The best 
Problem, thinkers of all ages have dealt with some of 
these questions which must be considered in the moral 
training of the young. They are not only profound 
and varied, covering every range of interest and dealing 
with the knowledge, the thought, and the life of many 
lands, but many of these truths are expressed in terms 
of a particular land that is characterised by imagery 
and stories and an abundance of feeling which is almost 
unknown to those who have been trained in our cold 
Western life. The Bible is a great Oriental book. It 
is full of history, literature, poetry, and song, and the 
man who would teach its lessons and impress its truths 
must know something of its origin, of its authority, of 
the lands, manners, customs, and institutions belonging 
to a civilisation radically unlike our own. Beyond all 
that, he must have incorporated into his life the spirit 
of that book which is so deeply permeated by ethical 
and religious considerations. He must know Hebrew 
poetry, morals, and jurisprudence, he must needs under- 



The Teacher's Preparation 89 

stand the historj^ of those times and the gradual un- 
folding of the religious ideas in the childhood of that 
race that was seeking after God. Better than all this, 
he needs to know the life of Christ, the moral expert, 
the master teacher, the divine man who came to teach 
that truth which should make men free. The teacher 
needs to know the higher class of literature which deals 
with soul, thought, and action. He needs to under- 
stand the choice stories and beautiful poems that reflect 
the best religious thought of the ages past and present. 

Why mourn above some broken flaw 
In the stone tables of the law, 
When scripture every day afresh 
Is traced on tablets of the flesh ? 

WHiTTrSR. 

Jesus never wrote a book, yet about him there have 

been written more books than about any other being 

who ever lived. Some of these the teacher God has 

needs to know. Jesus never painted a pic- "°*^ ^^^* 

t . , - . , himself 

ture, but more pictures have been pamted without 

of him than of any other who ever lived; he Testimony. 

has spoken to the hearts of hundreds, and the canvas 

glows with their thought of Christ, the child, the man, 

the sufferer, or the king. But it is not enough that 

the teacher should know the history of the past with 

all the lessons that the rich heritage brings to our time 

and people; he must know the conditions of to-day; 

he must understand something of the trades and 



90 Up Through Childhood 

occupations which to-day make demands upon the 
children of men; he must realise that lessons, deep and 
fine, in character, life, and conduct are wrought out 
here and now, and that the Spirit is teaching every day 
new lessons of God's love to human kind. 

New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient good 

uncouth ; 
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast 

of Truth; 
I/O, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must Pil- 

grimo be. 
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate 

winter sea. 
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted 

key. 

LowEi.1/. 

He must realise that temptations and inspirations are 
on every hand besieging the growing youth, like an 
ancient castle stormed in time of war. In a word, he 
must understand our complex and throbbing modern 
life, thrilling with a thousand forces which the world's 
teachers to-day have failed to recognise. Knowing all 
these things, he must understand something of the 
principles of education, of the great laws which govern 
minds in general, and the interests which rule in the 
mind of each child in particular. He must know 
something of the practices of those who are masters in 
the art of teaching, he must be able to understand how 
they touch the secret springs of thought and action and 
impress upon the teachable child lessons that are to 
abide to the eternities. 



The Teacher's Preparation 91 

But how can all these things be ? The will makes 
the way. With open heart and ready mind and the 
intelligent use of some of the Bible helps jj^^ ^.^ 
which are so easily accessible to-day, the Learn 

teacher may be able to gain large insight How. 

into, and a fair mastery of, the Bible thoughts and 
teachings. There is no preparation like the preparation 
that is made with a definite purpose, and he will be 
astonished at the speed with which his knowledge in- 
creases, with the growth of his thought, and the rich- 
ness of his experience, when he sets out to master 
these things for the great end of ministering to the 
growing human soul. With meditation, with prayer, 
with opening the soul toward heaven, he will come to 
understand the life of that One who taught the deepest 
and finest lessons while he lived the faultless life among 
men. 

Then there is the range of history, not alone in the 
days gone by, but here and now. In the history of our 
own nation, there have been events as mar- q^^ -^^ 
vellous in their nature and as far-reaching our 

in their effects as the remarkable things History, 
written in Bible history. There were a score of inci- 
dents in the Revolutionary War in which the reverent 
mind can see the hand of God, and which, if written 
up in biblical style, would seem to the child's mind as 
truly evidences of the divine action as the wonders re- 
corded in the Old Testament. We are coming to realise 
more and more that revelation is not static but dynamic; 



92 Up Through Childhood 

that is, that the spiritual forces are continually active, 
and that God's revelation of himself never ceases. 
History is full of the revelations of the Divine. 

** Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of 
the suns." 

The best thought of the best minds has been written 

in ages past, and we call this product literature. Scores 

of fine characters have been portrayed in a 
Literature 
and Art ^^^ ^^ touch the ready spirit and open 

minds of the young. Choice poems, mar- 
vellous and beautiful in character, have sprung from 
the poet's soul to inspire, elevate, and quicken the 
seeking mind; pictures have come into being at the 
touch of the painter's brush with their impressive les- 
sons; and truly never can he who would teach the 
Word of lyife, and who would recognise the divine truth 
of life, neglect these sources of persuasion which woo 
the soul to God. 

The study of teachers' books and the literature 
covering the whole range of adaptation to environment 

and equipment for modern life will offer an 
Teachers' 
Books abundance of suggestive and helpful things. 

Such a study of psychology, in its simpler 
forms, as will give a basis for this work may well be un- 
dertaken by the earnest and ambitious religious teacher 
who has a fair English education. There is now such an 
abundance of excellent material on different phases of 



The Teacher's Preparation 93 

mental life, that the question is not so much to find 
something which will help the teacher, as to choose 
most wisely from the numerous books which offer. But 
there is a psychology which is better than that which 
is found in books; in this the powers to see and to think 
are the chief requirements. It is such psychology as 
we practise to a greater or less extent every day of our 
lives. It is that careful, thoughtful study of children 
and young people which enables the teacher to inter- 
pret the actions, motives, and moods of childhood. 
The first condition for gaining this sensible and ready 
knowledge of the child is simple human interest. The 
teacher must love the child; and the love must be in- 
stinctive and sincere. 

This study may be greatly advanced by reading the 
better class of children's books. These, when true to 
nature, are superb interpreters of the child j^^^ ^^ 
mind. A large part of Dream Life brings Study 

the reader in touch with the very thoughts, Children, 
plans, and impulses of the boy's nature. So with parts 
of Arthur Bonnicastle, and some of the chapters in 
Ho wells' s A Boy's Town. Not a few of the best 
novels have an abundance of material which is the very 
choicest psychology. It has long seemed to me that a 
discriminating study of the psychology of literature 
might contribute greatly to this problem. Then there 
are the many stories which children like. To read 
these appreciatively and carefully will do much to bring 
one in touch with childhood and with youth. A good 



94 Up Through Childhood 

course of reading in The Youth' s Companion or any- 
other high-class paper for the young will go far to give 
the teacher the point of view which is so necessary in 
dealing with the young. 

Other light will come by mingling in their play and 
noticing them in their games. Associating in their 
sports and with their companions always presupposes 
on the part of the teacher a sincere sympathetic inter- 
est. Then there is such a thing as a deep and true 
friendship between an adult and a child, and as the 
teacher gains the friendship of one child easy to win 
and easy to understand, he can make that the means 
of explaining to himself many other children; but he 
must never forget that the heart is the best teacher. 
The multitude heard Jesus gladly; they were attracted 
by him; the great heart of the man, the sympathy, the 
love, the insight, the tenderness, the newness and 
freshness of his thought and hope appealed strongly to 
them. Just as truly did the multitude attract him, and, 
by the ready response which they found in his heart, 
called forth from him for themselves the richest and 
best that his fine and true nature dared to offer to them 
as they were. Jesus could not always tell the multi- 
tude what he wished to tell them; he could not always 
teach his disciples the deepest and finest lessons, — he 
knew that they were not ready; and I have sometimes 
thought that when a teacher finds it hard to enter into 
the confidence of a child, the reason is the same that 
was spoken by Christ of old. The child instinct- 



The Teacher's Preparation 95 

ively knows what is in the teacher's heart, and dares 
not trust himself to him. How noble and genuine the 
teacher ought to be! We must use the material we 
have. These ideals of preparation are high; not all 
teachers have mind or time or strength to attain them; 
but however high the ideals which one ought to set in 
this work, it must remain true for many years that the 
greater part of the Sunday-school teaching in this 
country will be done by people who have made but 
little preparation for this work. Anything that can 
help them toward a more complete equipment should 
be heartily welcomed. With hope of rendering some 
service in this direction I have stated some of the ways 
that may be found helpful in general preparation; but 
it must be kept in mind that the local conditions will 
determine what shall be done. In one community, 
great things are possible; in another, less pretentious 
efforts will succeed. It all settles itself to the question 
of getting the people to take the training best in kind 
and highest in amount that they will receive. Men 
and women are very slow to take what they need, and 
this is more true of the ignorant than of the educated. 
After all, the spirit in which teachers undertake and 
carry on the work of instruction will determine the de- 
gree of success which is possible to them. 

It is certain that every teacher ought to have a kind 
of stock in trade which may be made available for his 
students. One teacher in the school may be induced 
to give himself with care and consecration to the 



9^ Up Through Childhood 

study of literature, noting for the good of all such selec- 
tions in prose and verse as may be specially helpful for 

the work the school is trying to do. An- 
in Trade other may devote himself to Jewish history 

and Jewish law, to the doctrines of the Jew- 
ish Church, or to the customs, manners, and geography 
of Palestine. Another with a philosophic mind ma}'- 
turn his attention to ethics among the Jews, and to 
some consideration of their answer to life's questions. 
Another may give attention to the history of the Bible, 
and to the history of the different branches of the 
Christian Church through the ages. Kvery commun- 
ity has teachers who are interested to a greater or 
less degree in the literature pertaining to their calling, 
and they may be able to suggest satisfactory books 
or to give helpful thoughts on the general practice of 
teaching. The study of children's books is no mean 
element in a teacher's equipment, and the great mul- 
tiplication of libraries in these days promises to make 
that a means within the reach of almost any teacher. 

In the heart of every child there is a play instinct, and 
the teacher who would keep his youth and joy and zest 
for life, will gain more than all these things if he will 
enter heartily into the play-life of the children. Of 
course there is great need for that kind of imagination 
which appreciates child life, and makes one able to look 
at things from the child's standpoint. Then the teacher 
must be able to see something of the possibilities of the 
child. No young life can seem mean or low or unat- 



« 



The Teacher's Preparation 97 

tractive to the imagination that recognises its possibili- 
ties, and can see some hope of their fulfilment. It is 
the fundamental law of being interesting to children, 
and being interested by them. But all these things I 
have said apply to individuals and to individual v^^ork. 
Now any church with the right kind of enterprise will 
plan definitely for the cultivation of a teaching corps. 
Kven in very humble districts it will be possible to pro- 
vide for short courses of lectures, or terms of six lessons 
each, on topics that will contribute to the general in- 
telligence and special preparation of the teacher and 
young people. One of the quickest and best ways to 
insure a knowledge of the geography of Palestine is to 
be found in the use of lantern slides. These can make 
the land real to the whole community as nothing else 
can do. In this direction lies the advantage to be 
found in the pictures that are now to be had from 
numerous publishers at the price of a penny each. 
These may be pasted, in proper order, into scrap-books, 
and will serve as a means of illuminating a whole 
period to be studied. One hardly knows where to stop 
in making suggestions for this kind of work. But 
almost without exception a great deal more can be done 
than has been done, and a great deal more that will be 
of high value. The kind of teaching that makes strong 
teachers is not that which comes from lectures, but that 
which furnishes abundant work for each of the teachers 
to do for himself. 

One of the most thoughtful and earnest teachers in a 



qB Up Through Childhood 

Sunday-school ought to have charge of a bright, strong 

class of young people, who from Sunday to Sunday 

could study the things that will directly 

A 

Teachers* prepare them for their work as teachers. 

Training it is often urged that they will go away 

Class 

to school or to business and that the com- 
munity will lose their services. True enough. But 
the leaven is carried wisely and widely, and there is no 
kind of doubt that with the larger view the work 
abundantly pays for itself. And when this kind of 
work becomes general the Sunday-school teaching of 
our whole country will be mightily lifted up. There 
is altogether too much time idled away on the ordinary 
stereotyped Sunday-school lesson. The boys and girls 
in this age need to be doing something that is worth 
while, and they may as well be storing their minds 
with material which a little later will be of value if 
they are called to the work of teaching. 

The whole question of better teaching hinges upon 
the general intelligence of the community. There is 
no need for the Sunday-school to duplicate work already 
done in other quarters. ITS grKAT office: is to spir- 
itualise THE activities of LIFE. Education should 
be made one of the permanent interests of life. Not the 
irregular indefinite education which no man can escape, 
but a well planned, carefully worked-out scheme for im- 
provement. Men and women everywhere need to be 
more than they are, in order that they may do more; 
there must come to them personal power and mastery of 



The Teacher's Preparation 99 

spirit, in order that their influence may be more efiect- 
ive. I^et no reader be discouraged in this work. He 
may be disappointed for a time, but there is no other 
way except to begin just where the people are, and as 
patiently and earnestly and perseveringly as possible 
to lead them to new attainments. The world is sweep- 
ing into the light, but one man's life is only a grain 
of sand in the great glass of time. 



CHAPTBR VII 

THK TEACHKR AND THB BIBI,E 

Thk man who would teach must be open-minded; 
he must welcome truth from all climes, and with fine 
^jjg discrimination select that best fitted to his 

Open own use and purposes. There is nothing so 

• fatal to human character as a determination 

not to see the truth. This state of mind foredooms 
every question examined to a false consideration, and 
makes of no effect either much time or much study. 
Prejudice seems to permeate every sphere of life, and 
only a chosen few with large insight and tender love, 
and a faith which believes that the heavenly Father 
rules, are able to receive truth in unwelcome guise. 
So general is prejudice in political life that a man's 
political belief may be declared by knowing his sur- 
roundings. Society too has its petty ideas and whim- 
sical prejudices founded on what was once of real worth 
but is to-day of no value. Religion has many survivals 
of a culture older and less pure than our own. There 
should be no iron-clad law of interpretation; there is 
only one supreme quest, it is the quest of truth. God 
is steadily revealing himself to the children of men, 

lOO 



The Teacher and the Bible loi 

We are in the midst of this great revelation, and some- 
times are so near its mighty manifestations that we 
cannot recognise the outline, but it is there. The 
whole world tingles with the Divine. Every common 
bush is aflame, and for him who can see, there is life, 
light, and beauty too great to be imprisoned in any 
creed. God's law and God's word are one truth, and 
if sometimes they seem to contradict each other, it is 
only because we have not understood aright. If those 
men who build a wall of defence about the Bible would 
spend a little more time teaching its truth, the world 
would be better, and they would be busy to a better 
end. Some of their unchangeable explanations of 
eternal truth remind me of the profitless work of a 
Russian soldier: the life has gone beyond the point 
they are guarding. 

A Russian princess at the window of the palace saw 
a soldier pacing back and forth in the middle of the 
courtyard, without any apparent reason for ^ 

his course. She asked her governess why Useless 
he was there; she did not know. A page Labour, 
was called; he did not know. An officer was called 
from the hall, and yet no satisfaction. When the mat- 
ter was at last referred to the commanding general, he 
knew no more than any of the others, but in examining 
the records found that, thirty years before, a soldier had 
been ordered to pace this beat to guard a little snow- 
drop which an earlier princess in her girlhood had seen 
and loved. The flower had perished, but the order 



I02 Up Through Childhood 

remained, and back and forth the sentry travelled for 
years to guard a bit of life which could no longer profit 
by his care. 

Every man interprets God in the light of his own 
best experience and present knowledge; and as these 
equipments are not the same in any two men, their 
ideas of God and of his work cannot possibly be the 
same. If there are five hundred members in a Sunday- 
school, there will be five hundred different ideas of God 
and of general religious truth, provided these five hun- 
dred people have really thought for themselves. This 
is not true alone of the Bible, but of all things. Men 
may be divided into general classes, as conservatives 
and radicals; but when it comes to the individual inter- 
pretation of great principles, and the solution of those 
questions which concern a man's relation to duty, God, 
and immortality, every man will seek for himself the 
deepest and best interpretation that his knowledge and 
his experience can supply. But we are not without 
guidance, and *' a highway shall be there, and a way, 
and it shall be called the way of holiness; the way- 
faring men, though fools, shall not err therein." 

One may see truth as a scientist, and desire to test 
it with compound microscope, with scalpel, or with 
T th 's chemical reagents; he may see it as a poet, 
Many- and feel that it is not truth unless expressed 

Sided. jjj forms of beauty; he may see it as a his- 

torian, and be unable to recognise it as truth unless 
stated in the terms of human experience; but he of the 



The Teacher and the Bible 103 

broadest mind will be able to recognise truth whether 
presented as to the scientist, to the poet, or to the 
historian. 

A variety of interpretations will commend them- 
selves, some to one man, and others to another. Some 
forms are doubtless better for all men than Manv 

are others; but whatever interpretation may Roads to 
be given, who can doubt that the Bible con- Truth, 

tains enough of living truth for any man's salvation? 
Whoever comes to it with ready mind and reverent 
heart shall find there the highest and best that his life 
seeks. Woe to him who would deny his brother man 
God's comfort, come how it may! It is hard to have 
patience with either the mind or the heart of the man 
who announces that he has the only method of scrip- 
tural interpretation, and that his brother, who sees 
truth in a different light, is either false or foolish. 
God has not left himself with witnesses so few in this 
wide world of ours that he must call upon any one man 
to stand for the truth. In his holy word are written 
learning, love, and life; but all these are also written 
in nature, in our throbbing civilisation, and more than 
all in the great heart of man! 

It is hard for religious teachers to realise how far 

freedom of thought has been restricted in The 

their field. So generally is this recognised Truth- 

Seeker 
that it is customary to say of any religious should 

teacher that he is a special pleader; and it be Free. 

is a notorious fact that when a minister begins his 



I04 Up Through Childhood 

sermon on any given topic with the declared purpose 
of investigating it, any fairly intelligent hearer with a 
knowledge of the minister's faith and training is able 
to predict where he will come out. This will not do. 
There is no test higher than the test of truth, and no 
honesty more noble than honesty to one's own thought. 

** To thine own self be true ; 
And it must follow as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

I^or the religious teacher who comes reverently into 
the castle of truth to seek the best things, with a de- 
termination to know the truth at all cost, there is no 
praise too high, and no approval too emphatic. 

The truth in every age must be recast, not that it 
necessarily comes into better form than in the age pre- 
ceding, but because each age will speak its 
Truth in own language. No amount of blindness on 
New the part of the Church and no amount of 

prejudice on the part of her ministers will 
make any age long turn aside from this law of its life 
and progress. 

God has not left himself without witnesses, and if 

every book in the world were to be burned, still the 

struggling hearts of those who have known 
The Re&l 
Record ^^^ would proclaim an almighty, tender, 

of the and loving Father, with the great doctrine 

of sacrifice and salvation, and the world 

would go on to enrich its spiritual life from age to age. 



The Teacher and the Bible 105 

** There is religion in everything around us — a calm 
and holy religion in the unbreathing things of nature 
which man would do well to imitate. It is a meek 
and blessed influence, stealing in, as it were, unawares 
upon the heart; it comes quietly and without excite- 
ment; it has no terror, no gloom, in its approaches; it 
does not rouse up the passions; it is untrammelled by 
the creeds, and unshadowed by the superstitions, of 
man; it is fresh from the hands of its Author, glowing 
from the immediate presence of the Great Spirit, which 
pervades and quickens it; it is written on the arched 
sky; it looks out from every star; it is on the sailing 
cloud and in the invisible wind; it is among the hills 
and valleys of the earth, where the shrubless mountain- 
top pierces the thin atmosphere of eternal winter, or 
where the mighty forest fluctuates before the strong 
wind with its dark waves of green foliage; it is spread 
out, like a legible language, upon the broad face of the 
unsleeping ocean; it is the poetry of nature; it is this 
which uplifts the spirit within us until it is strong 
enough to overlook the shadows of our place of 
probation; which breaks, link after link, the chain 
that binds us to materiality; and which opens to our 
imagination a world of spiritual beauty and holiness." 

— RUSKIN. 

Nature teaches wonderful and beautiful lessons of re- 
ligion to the clear-seeing reverent soul, but even Ruskin, 
the master, could see its beauty all the better because 
he had known the Bible from childhood. For most 



io6 Up Through Childhood 

men the Bible is itself the truth of God and the inter- 
preter of nature. 

The Bible is a great Oriental book, full of local 
colour, full of the extravagances and peculiarities of 
Oriental life; in some respects, hard to 
^"~ understand, especially if interpreted in the 

cold and narrow spirit of our self-contained 
life; but luminous with meaning and full of inspiration, 
if interpreted with the warmth, life, and glow of the 
Oriental imagination. 

It is a library of sixty-six books, brought together 
by action of a council of learned and spiritual men. 
yjjg These books represent many writers from 

Bible a many sections. They cover a period of 
Library. more than fifteen hundred years, and give 
us pictures from a long stretch of the world's history. 
The Bible is a picture of the times in which its writers 
lived. It gives good and bad with singular frankness 
and directness. Matthew Arnold said: ** There is one 
English book, and only one, which, like the Iliad, has 
perfect plainness of speech, allied with perfect noble- 
ness, and that book is the Bible." This book is a 
progressive revelation, a marvellous story of the way by 
which the Divine has been unfolding himself to the 
poor, blind, halting children of men. We see how 
dimly they perceived the great power of the Infinite 
Good, and how poorly they were able to realise it as it 
unfolded little by little the great plans and processes 
which were to make man a partaker of the divine 



The Teacher and the Bible 107 

nature. The Bible is a book of great thoughts. In it are 
considered the great questions of human destiny, the 
burdens of human duty, the thought of a life beyond 
the grave, the conception of God ruling, guiding, and 
determining all. 

** Chemistry never silenced a guilty conscience. 
Mathematics never healed a broken heart. All the 
sciences in the world never smoothed down a dying 
pillow. No earthly philosophy ever supplied hope in 
death. No natural theology ever gave peace in the 
prospect of meeting a holy God." — Ryi^e:. 

These things the Bible has done for thousands, and 
will do for generations yet unborn. 

If man will go deep enough, he will find there lessons 
as profound, as true, and as far-reaching as eternity. 
It has hope for the sinner, comfort for the j^ j^ ^ 

sorrowing, cheer for the dying, and inspira- Book of 
tion for the hero. It has wrought itself into Inspiration, 
the life of our people with a depth and a strength and 
a fervency that mean more than we can measure. The 
clear and musical speech of King James's Version has 
been hidden in many hearts, and ever and anon there 
springs a flower where we had thought to find a weed, 
and there sounds a note of joy where we had expected 
a sigh of pain. How varied, rich, and wonderful is 
this great book! 



CHAPTER VIII 

r^n^ TEJACHEJR AND THE) CHII,D 

While: requiring the same general characteristics, 
there are some important points of difference in the re- 
lations of the teacher when he deals with the 
Relations, individual child and when he appears before 
his class. For each of these relations the 
teacher must have the seven elements named in the 
character efl&cient for good: love, honesty, insight, 
open-mindedness, courage, perseverance, knowledge. 
Besides these, he must have sympathy, patience, and 
aptness to teach. 

The first great need is sympathy; sympathy with 
childhood in general and with each individual child 
with whom he deals; no teacher can suc- 
cessfully instruct or inspire the child in the 
best things without this bond of relationship. It is 
here that the imagination comes in as a great factor. 
** Put yourself in his place" is the dictum of interpre- 
tation for the teacher in dealing with childhood, as it 
is for man everywhere with his fellow. The difficult 
thing is for the teacher to get the child's point of 
view. 

io8 



The Teacher and the Child 109 

All successful work in the realm of the spirit is 
marked by tender sympathy and rare and deep insight. 
One is often surprised that men whose spirits are fine 
and noble in most respects are so willing to wound 
those they love; and it almost always turns out that 
this course of behaviour is due to want of insight. In- 
sight makes us able to see the possibilities of the one 
we would help, and likewise his limitations. There is 
a whole range of things that every man is not able to 
do; the only difference is, they are different things in 
different people. The sooner the teacher comes to 
recognise this state of affairs, the more successful his 
work will be and the happier he will be in doing it. 
How large a share of the world's work is misdirected 
because those who labour cannot see that their work 
must in the nature of things come to naught ! If it is 
true in general in the world's work, it is many times 
true in religious work. It is a pity that so many 
earnest and energetic souls with slight knowledge 
have adopted as a kind of motto for themselves * * Put 
forth abundant effort and trust that all will come out 
well." Such a doctrine is slip-shod and foolish and 
vicious, and though some good may come of it, there 
is no hope that it will gain results at all in proportion 
to the effort expended. In all religious work there is 
need for the same patient, earnest, well-directed, com- 
mon-sense effort that other lines of activity pitilessly 
require. 

There is no calling in the world which makes upon 



no Up Through Childhood 

its followers a greater demand for patience than that 

of teaching. Many of the minor aims in teaching 

may be wrought out in a comparatively 
Patience 

short time, and there is much satisfaction in 

the quick results; but there is no blinding one's self to 

the fact that for the large aim of character there must 

be not only a faith that fails not but a patience that 

is never weary. 

In its best aspects, love is a great, noble, and beautiful 
gift; but there is a love that is blind, selfish, narrow, 
Love ^^^ mean. Many a father who loves his 

Gives child, and now and then a mother, loves so 

Patience, blindly and so foolishly that harm is 
wrought; but the love of one who would teach well is 
the love that doth not fail, a love that suffereth long 
and is kind, a love that vaunteth not itself, is not puffed 
"Up, yea, and doth not behave itself unseemly. 

Given all the other qualities which are usually sup- 
posed to be included in the teacher's equipment, if he 
lacks this one, nothing will mend the defect, 
p ness^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^.^ aptness to teach sees 

the need and the means of meeting it, and 
brings these two together with the highest skill and 
in the nick of time. He has the art of making things 
just right, and, almost unconsciously to himself and the 
child, knowledge or discipline has accomplished its 
work, and new and happy relations are established. 
After we have made full allowance for culture and for 
special training, it still remains true that aptness to 



The Teacher and the Child 1 1 1 

teach is the one great quality which overtowers the 
others, and which has led to the statement that '' the 
teacher, like the poet, is born, not made." When na- 
ture and grace have done their work, and knowledge 
has contributed its share to the equipment, we have a 
master teacher who is both an artist and a king. 

The teacher should take each child as a problem for 
solution. It is to be studied with every help which the 
teacher can command. The question is, "pijg child 
"What forces can I bring to bear on this Is a 

boy's character in order to make him the 
best possible man ? " or, * ' How can I deal with this 
girl in order to make her the best possible woman ? ' ' 
This is a problem to be studied with all the wisdom 
and patience and zeal of a teacher's nature. It is a 
problem to be wrought out with all patience and care. 
The end is a character efficient for good, and the 
highest character possible for that boy or girl. 

The body is the first point for consideration, and on 
its integrity, vigour, and endurance will depend to a 
great degree the child's success. 

1. How far can the body be made to sustain and ad- 
vance the higher life ? 

2. What are the defects of the body ? 

3. Where is the weakness that promises most easily 
to defeat the struggle of the spirit ? 

4. Are there elements which will adversely affect the 
child's life, and in some fashion undermine high resolve 
and noble endeavour ? 



112 Up Through Childhood 

5. What is the dominant motive in the spiritual 
realm ? 

6. What is the highest aim in the child's life? 

7. Does this aim rule ? 

8. What means are active to meet this end ? 

9. Has he chosen the best means ? 

10. Does he persevere ? 

11. Does he get discouraged with himself? 

12. From your standpoint, is the end worth the 
effort? 

13. Does he live with a zest ? 

With questions like these, study the human problem. 

Many a child does not understand himself, and the 
teacher may render service by helping him to study 
and interpret his own nature. If the child realises the 
importance of this study even in part, and if the teacher 
takes hold in a patient, kindly, and helpful way, the 
effort will be successful, and the result gratefully re- 
ceived by the child. In this discussion I have used 
the word child, but I mean just as truly the youth or 
the young man or the young woman. For all of these, 
life is a great problem, and when they realise its signi- 
ficance, the question tingles with inspiration; it becomes 
the lifetime exercise. The solutions offered by different 
people to one human problem may vary, but every 
careful solution should have a certain value. The 
greatest good comes from studying the child from every 
point of view which a wise and true friend may take. 
Granted that all this has been done and that the teacher 



The Teacher and the Child 113 

has been sincere with himself and sincere with his 
situation, his solution to this problem of character will 
be far more satisfactory than that which is usually 
reached. There is a great reward which also comes to 
one who has the privilege of taking up again the pro- 
blems of life and considering them with an earnest 
young man or young woman who looks upon them for 
the first time. This is the teacher's opportunity to 
correct some of his own mistakes, and to work out 
again, in the light of larger knowledge and experience, 
the problems which perhaps he did not solve so wisely 
in his youth. One of the highest heritages that can 
come to a child is to have the sincere, earnest help of a 
true man or woman, a real friend who is a little farther 
along on life's pathway, one who has made an attempt 
at the solution of some of the problems which throng 
the days of youth. Superintendent Carr's tribute to 
the day-school teacher applies here. 

Religion may be taught by the example of the 
teacher. " But what [can be] compared to the ex- 
ample of a noble Christian teacher — one whose heart is 
in her work, one who sees in every child the image of 
God ? With such a teacher in the schoolroom, the age 
of miracles has not yet passed. She anoints blind eyes, 
and lo! they see new beauties in earth and sky; she 
unstops deaf ears, and they hear wonderful harmonies; 
she loosens fettered hands, and they perform deeds of 
mercy and kindness. She touches dumb lips, and 
they break forth into song. By a magic power she can 



114 Up Through Childhood 

exorcise evil spirits. She speaks to the spirit of lazi- 
ness, and he departs. She says to the demon of stub- 
bornness, 'Come out of him,' and he comes forth. She 
commands the devil of lying to be gone, and forthwith 
he goes. In her presence the good in every child 
blossoms and bears fruit. Industry becomes easy and 
pleasant, quietness an everyday affair, and kindness 
the rule of the school. Such a teacher becomes the 
guide, the inspiration, the ideal of the children — their 
true guardian angel. She * lures to brighter worlds 
and leads the way.' " 

Many persons who can deal with an individual lack 
the generalship to marshal a class. That demand is a 
_,- test of capacity. It requires a certain large- 

Teacher uess of view and an ability to hold many 

before the things in mind at the same time. There 
Class. 

must also be a strong determination to 

carry through the main points to be accomplished, and 
such versatility that one can change quickly and eco- 
nomically from one line of action or interest to another. 
The suggestions which follow may be helpful in secur- 
ing good results. 

Place the class in compact form, so that you may stand 
or sit in front of them, and may on the instant meet them 
eye to eye. The eye is one of the greatest means in gov- 
erning and in teaching. The wise teacher will use it 
much, but always simply, naturally, and directly. He 
will say many things with the eye which it is not wise 
to say with the lips. It may speak reproof, encourage- 



The Teacher and the Child 115 

ment, or approval; it may talk to the one or to the 
many with a freedom, a fulness, and an intensity 
which are quite beyond the power of the tongue. 

The class should be placed if possible in a separate 
room, in which there is an abundance of air and light 
and good comfortable seats. The temperature should 
be about seventy degrees Fahrenheit, and the air 
should be pure and wholesome, and in some way 
changed often enough to be kept in that condition. It 
is astonishing how much good physical conditions 
make for order, scholarship, and personal power. 

Now, the teacher, by movement, pause, or word, 
signifies his desire for the attention of the class. With 
many classes, this will be sufficient; but at all hazards 
he must insist upon attention, and must avail himself 
of some means of gaining it.' 

Having met the external conditions, the teacher 
must now find the point of contact, or, more wisely 
still, he has found the point of contact days or weeks 
before. 

There is always a leader. Every class has one and 
sometimes several students that must be directly reck- 
oned with in the presentation of the lesson for the day. 
These may be students who think more quickly than 
the others, or they may be those who, because of their 
personal charm, vigour, or assertiveness, are inclined to 
control the line of thought which the class is to take. 

Then there is an individuality in every class; it is 
' See Chapter XII. 



ii6 Up Through Childhood 

determined largely by the character and taste of the 
one or two students who, from determination or natural 
endowment, dominate the class. 

Next after personal power, the teacher must make 
the right use of question, story, or discussion. With 
smaller students, when first becoming acquainted with 
the class, it is often desirable to have them recite in 
concert phrases and even sentences and stanzas. This 
gives unity to the work and leads the class to flow to- 
gether in common interest. With older students, it is 
often a teacher's best step to propose some question 
which is of general interest, and get a pretty full ex- 
pression from the members. If the question is one on 
which the students cannot be expected to agree, that is 
so much the better. 

It is taken for granted that the teacher has a lesson 

plan, and that in this plan of work he has definitely 

set before himself the end of instruction and 

Lesson ^^^ means by which that end is to be reached, 
Plan. 

including pictures, stories, and general illus- 
trations. He will likewise have a plan for the devel- 
opment of the lesson, and after putting the matter in 
compact and usable form, will emphasise from time 
to time the large aim of all this work by both the mat- 
ter and the manner of presentation. He will not al- 
ways permit the students to see that aim, but he must 
himself definitely recognise that character is the end. 
In a single recitation a teacher may have half a dozen 
different aims to accomplish, but each contributing to 



The Teacher and the Child 1 1 7 

this great aim. Last but not least, the teacher must 
deal with the students in the spirit of frankness. If 
the work is too difficult, he must be patient and careful, 
and quickly bring it to the plane where it meets the 
need of the class. If the work is too easy or too super- 
ficial, he must quickly give it strength and depth. It 
is a mistake to think that any class cares for trifling 
lessons. The trifling character of the lessons in many 
Sunday-schools goes far to account for the lack of in- 
terest and for the general shallowness of view among 
its members. When wisely managed, the class can be 
induced to do a great deal of strong work with an 
abundance of good hard thinking. Boys, and young 
men in particular, welcome that kind of instruction 
which calls upon them for the best thinking of which 
they are capable. They can feel themselves grow, and 
that is nature's great reward for earnest effort. The 
teacher will welcome any suggestion of real value, 
thread his way through thoughtful and difficult situa- 
tions, and tactfully make all the exercises of the class 
bend toward the great end of his work — character. 



I PART III 

I THE LEARNER 



"9 



CHAPTER IX 

WHAT IS MAN? 

What is man ? This is the question for 

every age. ^Jjf ^^ 

Man ? 

In the language of chemistry, he is a 
shovelful of earth and a bucketful of water. 

In the language of physics, he is a wonderful 
machine, a combination of various bands, cords, and 
levers, adjusted in due relation and operating for a 
specific purpose. 

In the language of physiology, he consists of a bony 
framework covered with flesh and skin, and supplied 
with various organs whose functions are to preserve 
the life of the individual and to perpetuate the species. 

In the language of sociology, he is a unit in the 
organism of human society and has his specific func- 
tions in the life of the social whole, just as the organs of 
the body have specific functions in the life of the body. 

In the language of psychology, he is a mind mani- 
festing various phenomena, all of which occur in har- 
mony with law. 

In the language of theology, he is the dust of the 
ground and the breath of God, a spark struck from the 

121 



122 Up Through Childhood 

divine anvil, a life enclosed in a clod of clay, a son of 
the Most High afar from his Father's house, but when 
true to himself, seeking his eternal home. 

In the language of education, he is a being consti- 
tuted of body and mind, a bundle of possibilities from 
which the developments may be marvellous. 

ou an jjg -g )jQY^ jjj weakness, yet destined to 
Body. 

Strength; promising noble things, yet often 

falling short of fulfilment. He is the hope of the good 
and the great. 

No man knows the relation of mind and body, yet 
we are coming more fully to recognise that there is a 
Relation close tie that binds them together, and that 
of Mind the best manifestation of mental life is found 
and Body, j^^ connection with a fine, chaste, physical 
life. We also realise that the body may be a strength 
to help us on toward God, and that its elasticity and 
the exuberance of high health may so temper our mind 
and face our spirits toward life's difficulties and dis- 
couragements that we may be able by sheer force of 
physical prowess to surmount many of the obstacles 
that life offers. But great as is the value of the physi- 
cal, there is a moral courage that is above any physi- 
cal courage, and, after all, the great problem of life is 
to spiritualise the nature, to see that the part which is 
highest shall de highest. Ours is the duty to make the 
spirit triumphant over the body; to make life dominate 
the clay. Nowhere have I seen this better expressed 
than by Bertha Hasseltine : 



What Is Man? 123 

The Spiritual and the Physical 

Doth not the soul the body sway ? 
And the responding plastic clay 
Receive the impress every hour 
Of the pervading spirit's power ? 

Look inward if thou wouldst be fair ; 
To beauty guide the feelings there, 
And this soul-beauty, bright and warm, 
Thy outward being will transform. 

So by the glorious might of mind 
Let all thy nature be refined, 
Till in the soul's inspiring flow 
Thy beauty shall increasing grow. 

And let the heart rich colouring give, 
And bid the beauteous statue live, 
That, gracing earth and fit for heaven. 
Life's richest dower to thee be given. 



The ideal which we hold of human life and of man's 
destiny will determine to a great degree the way in 
which we strive to realise the best that man may be. 
First there must be freedom to grow. 

The pent-up energies of the body must find healthful 

and satisfying scope. Not that the boy may become 

only a fine animal, but that there must be 

Freedom 
such a use of the forces of the body that its ^^ Grow. 

energy will not be a force soliciting to evil. 
The mind, too, must be dominated by a worthy pur- 
pose, and so directed and occupied that a steady, in- 
telligent, and worthy activity may be the constant aim. 
The heart must needs be full of high, true, inspiring 



124 Up Through Childhood 

love; and as the young life reaches out in varied di- 
rections, so far as possible it must be shielded from the 
cold cynicism of the world on the one hand, and on the 
other from that unquestioning faith which can lead 
only to disappointment or to permanent distrust. 

I am more and more impressed with the importance 
of freedom in the large, high sense of the term. There 
must be freedom for the body. It must not be bound 
by any absurd requirements which will hinder its full 
development. There must be freedom of action. There 
must be an abundance of fresh air, good food, and sound 
sleep. The day has gone by for feeble body, the pale 
face, and the clouded brain. We need the highest and 
finest strength that may come to us. 

To grow, fulfil the laws of growth. There must 
be freedom to grow, and there must be the material 
u for the great master spirit of man to use in 

shall we the building. It is a structure which in 
Grow? itself, and of its own initiative, moves on 
and on toward the realisation of a good form, perme- 
ated by a high degree of life. The human being has 
many stages of growth. Each is marked by some 
strong, even predominating characteristic, and gives 
place insensibly by a process of growth to a new stage 
of development marked by a new characteristic. 

This has a parallel in our national life. After the 
period of voyage and discovery came the great begin- 
nings of our life as a people. Men everywhere looked 
to the question of settlement. Forests were cleared, 



What Is Man? 125 

rivers cleaned, docks built, railways constructed. The 
wheels of industry began to turn along every river, and 
in every valley far and wide little streams of trade 
rushed to the larger current, and almost unconsciously 
to ourselves there had developed a colonial life bound 
to the mother country. Little by little these ties were 
weakening, and with the recognition of our own inner 
strength, and with the development of our own suf- 
ficiency, we came to see that separation was possible, 
and in a moment of irritation we felt that it would be 
desirable. Deeper than all oppression, deeper than all 
reactions against unworthy government and unworthy 
men, so grew the strong native instinct that leads men 
to have their government among themselves. Then 
there was the painful period of separation, the setting 
up of a new government, the developing of powers be- 
fore unknown, the recognition of possibilities and tend- 
encies, ideals, impulses, yea, attainment, that before 
had not been dreamed of. Under the fierce heat of war 
there came our elements of heroism and patriotism, and 
the strength of a far vision which made possible the 
understanding of problems reaching into the centuries. 
Now, dealing with such questions as these, striving to 
work them out along new lines, we found in ourselves 
as a people new possibilities and new powers. To meet 
these possibilities which before were dormant, we burst 
into the strength of a new life, and from thirteen little 
republics we became in rudimentary form a nation. 
We paused aside from the stir, hurry, and life of the 



126 Up Through Childhood 

Old World, with a conscious bashfulness of youth, with 
a sense of our own immaturity, and with a recognition 
that silence, reserve, and accumulation were the things 
fitting for us. 

The growth of a child is not unlike this outline of 
our national growth. The child is scarcely more than 
an infant when the inner instinct and activity which 
never rest drive it on and on to test its little world on 
every side, to make new discoveries, to find new incent- 
ives to action, and by some means, unconscious though 
it may be, to discover its own powers. And these grow- 
ing powers are found, and they are not a few, but they are 
not all. Still the child lingers aside, its world is narrow, 
and it learns the limits well. As it is with the thought 
of the great outside world, so it is with the thought of 
childhood, — the thought touched everywhere with the 
glow, the thought made bright by the gleam, of a light 
beyond the stars. This is the great age of imagination, 
and the child shrinks aside from the lessons and the 
life of the work-a-day world that he may be with his 
own thoughts, that he may build his own castles, that 
he may become more and more what he ought to be. 
This is the period in which childhood is dominated by 
the ** Monroe Doctrine." True to his needs, he shrinks 
from the vigorous struggling world of life. The stir- 
ring sense of unconscious life within him will make 
itself known; it resides in him, planted by the wise 
nature of an Almighty Father, in order that his children 
may be men and women, and the very life of childhood 



What Is Man? 127 

exists only that man may learn the world and learn 
some little of the Self which the reaction of the outer 
world upon the inner life in course of time develops. 
Most marvellous is this reaction, and most wonderful 
are its results! 

After the boy has come to recognise his own powers, 
tendencies, and general disposition, he bends his en- 
ergies in many directions, and measures his power with 
others of his kind. His energy seeks new channels, he 
tests new conditions, combinations, and peculiarities of 
environment; his whole disposition goes out in new 
fields to conquer. He is learning more, seeing more, 
doing more. This corresponds to the recent '* Age of 
Expansion " in our national life. 

Out of the action of a human soul upon surroundings 
we have the developed man, out of the reaction of a 
nation upon its surroundings we find a great people 
with a unified national life. However, it is not the 
nation, but the individual that concerns us most 
closely. With his rare insight and words of power, 
Shakespeare has traced the round of human life from 
the cradle to the grave. 

The Seven Ages of Man 

All the world 's a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players : 
They have their exits and their entrances ; 
And one man in his time plays many parts. 
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, 
MewHng and puking in the nurse's arms. 



128 up Through Childhood 

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel, 

And shining morning face, creeping, like snail, 

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 

Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad 

Made to his mistress's eyebrow. Then the soldier, 

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, 

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, 

Seeking the bubble reputation 

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice. 

In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd, 

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, 

Full of wise saws and modern instances, 

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts 

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, 

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side; 

His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide 

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, 

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, 

That ends this strange, eventful history, 

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion ; 

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

As You Like It, 

The second childhood carries the poor human being 
out into the shadows, but the first carries him out into 
the new and growing realm of power. And he finds 
the working of a law which brings the body to the 
grave without a struggle, and by a process as quiet and 
natural as the flame of the candle dies down in the 
socket which holds it. We trust there is a higher 
thought. This fading out of the light of the eye, and 
this failing of all the bodily powers is only that the 
spirit may have the finer field for development, and 
that the veils of the soul, which have hung about to 



What Is Man? 129 

shed from it the unclouded glory which it was not able 
to bear, may in death be gently drawn aside for the in- 
pouring of the light eternal. But life is here, and now 
as parents and teachers we must meet it in each of the 
developing stages, supplying those surroundings which 
will contribute most to the right unfolding of its grow- 
ing powers. These stages are not unmarked, but glide 
into each other by a relative transition, with diflSculty 
recognised by a parent and often overlooked by a 
teacher, who should readily recognise the change. 
These for the most part glide into each other; but it is 
a great convenience for the teacher to have in mind 
some clear idea of the different stages through which 
the child passes in the development of his own being 
and in the adaptation to his own environment. 

The child's life may, for study, be divided into five 
periods: 

1 . The sucking period, which covers the first year. 

2. The period of early childhood, which is a time of 
rapid adaptation to environment, covering the years 
from one to six. That is the great period of unfold- 
ing for mind and body. It is a time of acquisition. 
** Let me see," is the cry of the child's whole nature. 
It is a time when self-expression is strong; the mind is 
hungry, the body cries out for action. It is said with 
some show of truth that the child at six years of age 
knows half as much as he will ever know. Ah, how 
rapidly he has been learning! He has learned to ob- 
serve. The great world has widened on every side, 



I30 Up Through Childhood 

and he knows a thousand things about him. Form 
and colour, size, weight, smoothness, and beauty, all 
have told him their secrets. He has begun to judge 
people; he knows his friends, and avoids his enemies. 
He has learned the language of a smile and the harsher 
language of a frown. He has learned to walk, and 
goes afar to explore new fields. He has learned the 
marvellous relationships which are the beginning of 
all thought. He is already in his own small way a 
thinker. He has learned a new language. In short, 
he has made a beginning on the great circle of experi- 
ence that shall widen until he dies. 

3. The time from seven to twelve is a period of ripen- 
ing for childhood. In the early part of this period the 
senses are still very much alert and the child seeks 
information through every channel. lyater, the memory 
becomes more active, and it seems as if nothing that 
the mind has once grasped can make its escape. The 
varied parts of the body seem to ripen and finish them- 
selves for the child-period. There is a pause, and then 
comes a rapid marshalling of the forces. 

4. The boy prepares to become a man; the mysteri- 
ous change of puberty is upon him. The body stores 
material. He grows rapidly. The mind gathers new 
ideas and new thought material in abundance. It 
seems that every part of the body has more than enough 
material for recuperation and natural growth. Fiery 
currents surge through his body; strange thoughts 
come to his mind. To his heart sometimes there comes 



What Is Man ? 131 

the feeling that his best friends do not care for him. 
This is the age when boys plan to run away from home; 
the age when they are restless under restraint; the time 
when they need wise, and true, and confidential friends; 
the time when the unselfish and wise Sunday-school 
teacher can do his largest and most far-reaching work. 
The stream of existence is taking its direction for all 
the days to come. The heart is hungry and seeks for 
sjanpathy and companionship. A little later the altru- 
istic feelings grow strong. The idea of service pre- 
dominates and the youth recognises the obligations to 
human society, of which he is a part. It is the time 
of supreme friendships. A boy will then form a friend- 
ship for one who is older and wiser, and will give 
his life rather than be untrue. This is the time for 
abundant exercise; the time for healthful occupation 
for body, mind, and heart. 

5. The next period, from eighteen to twenty-five, 
witnesses the unfolding of that consciousness which 
recognises the family life. New thoughts of the per- 
manency of life and the permanency of human rela- 
tions come to him, and a recognition of the rightfulness 
of many laws in human society which, until this time, 
he has felt to be burdensome or useless. Then are 
established the habits of business life, and the young 
man begins to take that attitude of body and mind 
which shows him a farmer, a carpenter, a minister, a 
lawyer, a physician, or a business man. Manhood 
takes a " holding turn," and from that time forth, not 



132 Up Through Childhood 

only professional habits, but many a turn of the moral 
life is settled to continue to the grave. A little later 
come the recognition of the national life, the con- 
sciousness of his belonging to his country, a feeling of 
the world relationships, and himself a part of all. The 
round of human relationships, with the experiences of 
life, and that longing for the other home where are 
those whom we have loved and lost, is beautifully 
portrayed in Jean Ing^low^s Songs of Seven. To con- 
dense the poem is to mar its beauty. But the reader 
will find here its lessons. 

Songs of Seven 

Seven times one. Exultation 

There 's no dew left on the daisies and clover, 

There 's no rain left in heaven : 
I 've said my '* seven times " over and over, 

Seven times one are seven. 

I am old, so old, I can write a letter ; 

My birthday lessons are done ; 
The lambs play always, they know no better ; 

They are only one times one. 

Seven times two. Romance 

I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover, 

While dear hands are laid on my head : 
"The child is a woman, the book may close over, 

For all the lessons are said." 

I wait for my story— the birds cannot sing it, 

Not one, as he sits on the tree ; 
The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O bring it ! 

Such as I wish to be. 



What Is Man ? 133 

Seven times three. Love 

I leaned out of window, I smelt the white clover, 
Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate ; 
** Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover — 
Hush, nightingale, hush ! O sweet nightingale, wait 
Till I listen and hear 
If a step draweth near, 
For my love he is late ! " 

** Too deep for swift telling ; and yet, my one lover, 

I 've conned thee an answer, it waits thee to-night." 
By the sycamore passed he, and through the white clover, 
Then all the sweet speech I had fashioned took flight ; 
But I '11 love him more, more 
Than e'er wife loved before. 
Be the days dark or bright. 

Seven times four. Maternity 

Heigh ho ! daisies and buttercups, 

Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall ! 
When the wind wakes how they rock in the grasses, 

And dance with the cuckoo-buds slender and small ! 
Here 's two bonny boys, and here 's mother's own lassies. 

Eager to gather them all. 

Seven times five. Widowhood 

I sleep and rest, my heart makes moan 

Before I am well awake ; 
*' Ivct me bleed ; O let me alone, 

Since I must not break! " 

For children wake, though fathers sleep 

With a stone at foot and at head : 
O sleepless God, forever keep, 

Keep both living and dead ! 



134 Up Through Childhood 

Seven times six. Giving in Marriage 

To bear, to nurse, to rear. 

To watch, and then to lose ; 
To see my bright ones disappear, 

Drawn up like morning dews — 
To bear, to nurse, to rear. 

To watch, and then to lose : 
This have I done when God drew near 

Among his own to choose. 

To hear, to heed, to wed. 

And with thy lord depart 
In tears that he, as soon as shed, 

Will let no longer smart. 
To hear, to heed, to wed. 

This while thou didst I smiled, 
For now it was not God who said, 

** Mother, give ME thy child." 

Seven times seven. Longing for home 

A song of a boat : — 
There was once a boat on a billow ; 
lyightly she rocked to her port remote. 
And the foam was white in her wake like snow. 
And her frail mast bowed when the breeze would blow 
And bent like a wand of willow. 

A song of a nest : — 
There was once a nest in a hollow ; 
Down in the mosses and knot grass pressed. 
Soft and warm, and full to the brim — 
Vetches leaned over it purple and dim. 
With buttercup buds to follow. 

I pray you, what is the nest to me, 
My empty nest ? 



What Is Man ? 135 

And what is the shore where I stood to see 

My boat sail down to the west ? 
Can I call that home where I anchor yet, 

Though my good man has sailed ? 
Can I call that home where my nest is set, 

Now all its hope hath failed ? 
Nay, but the port where my sailor went. 

And the land where my nestlings be : 
There is the home where my thoughts are sent, 

The only home for me — 

Ah me! 



CHAPTER X 

SKlyF-ACTlVlTY AND ENVIRONMENT 

Every student of children must have recognised in 
them a tremendous mental activity. It is sometimes 
-,, called a hunger — a hunger of the body and 

Many a hunger of the soul. A child's being in 

Hungers, every part seeks nourishment and expres- 
sion. It is this characteristic in nature which lyowell 
sings in Sir Launfal : 

Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers 

And, groping blindly above it for light, 
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers. 

It is this climbing to a soul which characterises the 
untaught activity of childhood, an impulse that will 
The ^^^ ^'^VL brook resistance; it causes the 

Climbing physical activity in the body which is to be 
Soul. made; the mental and spiritual activity in 

the soul which is to be developed. There is the cry- 
ing out of the whole nature, not only for food and 
nourishment, but for an activity which cannot fail to 
develop power. It is this internal activity played upon 

136 



Self- Activity and Environment 137 

by external forces which offers the problem of Self- 
activity and Environment; the play of these two forces, 
when properly related, results in education. 

It is a truism, that struggle develops character, and 
as long as the struggle is wholesome, natural, and 
reasonable, there is no doubt that the char- stru^^le 
acter developed is of the best kind. But and 

every spirit has its breaking strain, and ^^^^ ®^* 
whenever the contest is carried beyond the point where 
the internal force is able to triumph, there come dis- 
appointment, hesitation, doubt, failure. The secret 
of all sound education is found in the reaction be- 
tween forces without and forces within, and no teach- 
ing, no exercise, is valuable except as it excites this 
reaction. 

A child's relation to his environment is one of the 

most important topics. It is because this relation is 

so often a false one, that the warm, active, „. , 

' ' Right 

pure, and sensuous life is submerged or per- Relation 

verted by external forces. The environment *o E"" 

. J J , .. r ' j_ vironment. 

indeed becomes a matter of supreme import- 
ance, and the high duty of the parent or the teacher is 
to place the surroundings in such relation to the child 
that they may always call forth his latent energies and 
predisposition in lines of right activity, and that they 
shall not in any way contribute to seal up within him 
those activities, desires, and purposes that are the 
highest ends of education. 

Wordsworth talks of a prison-house that closes about 



138 Up Through Childhood 

the growing boy'; Hood laments that the heaven, so 
Open the ^^^^ ^^ childhood, is now farther ofif than 
Prison- when he was a boy%* but the only reason 
house. ^Yiat this prison-house closes about us, and 

that heaven gets farther away, is because we are clos- 

* Heaven lies about us in our infancy. 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy ; 
The Youth, who daily farther from the Kast 
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended ; 
At length the Man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day. 

Wordsworth. 

' i rbmember 

I remember, I remember, 
The house where I was born. 
The little window where the sun 
Came peeping in at morn ; 
He never came a wink too soon, 
Nor brought too long a day. 
But now, I often wish the night 
Had borne my breath away. 



I remember, I remember, 

The fir trees dark and high ; 

I used to think their slender tops 

Were close against the sky : 

It was a childish ignorance. 

But now 't is little joy 

To know I 'm farther off from Heav'n 

Than when I was a boy. 

Thomas Hood. 



Self- Activity and Environment 139 

ing rather than opening the vents which allow the free 
spirit within to reveal its glory, and to come in touch 
with God's outer beauty in this great true world. 

One may overcome environment; he may be over- 
come by it, or he may flee from it. When one is 
sufficiently strong to overcome his environ- Relations 
ment by bringing out of the struggle strength to En- 

and victory , then it contributes to his growth. '^iJ'o""^^"'^- 
When he is overcome by environment and it leads him 
where it will, he finds suffering and loss. When an 
unwholesome environment is overcoming our resistance, 
it is the part of wisdom to flee. Here, then, is the field 
of activity for the will. By means of this we are able 
to choose for ourselves those surroundings which will 
make us strong, minister to our growth, and leave us 
nobler with each passing year. 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 

Let each new temple, nobler than the last. 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast. 

Till thou at length art free. 

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! 

HoivMES. 

There is another aspect of the process of education; 

it consists in recognising that the child is born to an 

inheritance from the civilisation of the past. 

To paraphrase President Butler: " It covers , . "' 
^ ^ heritances. 

the whole range of literary, scientific, aes- 
thetic, institutional, and religious achievements of those 



I40 Up Through Childhood 

who have gone before, and to each of us comes, as an 
educational birthright, such a knowledge of the achieve- 
ments of the past in these various fields as will con- 
tribute to our highest development." — Meaning of 
Education. 

The literary inheritance includes not only the litera- 
tures of the world, but the languages of the world. 
Literary '^^^ literatures are valuable in that they 
Inherit- show how great minds of different nations 
^"^®* have answered life's questions. To master 

the literature of any civilised people is to enter into a 
great inheritance. But one must master languages, 
which are the tools of thought, if he would know great 
literatures. It has been said, and not without truth, 
that for the mastery of every new language the man 
receives a new soul. However, I am much impressed 
with the thought that the smattering knowledge of 
several languages received in our high schools and 
colleges is much less satisfactory, and gives less power 
to the student, than the mastery of one. There is 
doubtless a certain value in the study of the dead lan- 
guages, and for our needs and time a fair study of one 
of the dead languages and the mastery of a living lan- 
guage will bestow on the student more real power than 
a slight knowledge of several. We of the English 
tongue, with all the wealth of thought, literature, and 
learning which has been embodied in our literature, 
have need to rejoice that we naturally grow up in the 
knowledge of a language which may unfold to us such 



Self-Activity and Environment 141 

profound lessons of literature, science, history, and art. 
So far as coming at the stores that are hidden in foreign 
languages, there is little need to study them for that 
purpose, because for the average person the great 
number of excellent translations will do far more than 
he is able to do for himself. 

By the scientific inheritance we mean not only the 
great range of scientific knowledge found in physics, 
chemistry, and biology, but all those appli- Scientific 
cations of science which in our everyday Inherit- 
life contribute to the comfort of men. The ance. 

illustrations are not far to seek, for they are found in 
telegraphs, telephones, electric cars, steam-engines, and 
water-rams, washing powder, and a hundred of the 
small or great materials, methods, or appliances that 
will help to lighten daily labour or to protect health. 
The acquisition of the scientific inheritance bestows 
upon the student a training which is of the greatest 
value. He learns there to weigh the comparative 
value of facts, to measure and interpret statements, and 
to put together a whole range of ideas which ought to 
unfold to him the movements of nature in accordance 
with law. Then, too, there comes to him almost un- 
consciously an understanding of the method of induc- 
tion. He has the instinctive disposition to apply that 
to the affairs of everyday life. There is, however, 
one feature of the scientific inheritance that may be 
very well emphasised, and that is the application of the 
general laws to the practical affairs of life. What shall 



142 Up Through Childhood 

it profit him to understand the principles of chemistry, 
and be able to work out intricate calculations in phys- 
ics, if he does not know the importance of putting 
water in the cellar to keep the vegetables from freezing, 
or if he does not understand that water in the gas-pipes 
is responsible for the fitful flame? He needs the 
science of common things. 

We have heard again and again of the beauty of 
holiness, and there are not a few with true insight who 
Esthetic ^^^ highly appreciative of the holiness of 
Inherit- beauty. In the work-a-day world, with its 
^^^^' soil and care and pain, happy is the man 

who can gather from nature and from art something 
of the joys of creation, and something of the high ap- 
preciation which makes life seem beautiful and unfolds 
to him in the periods of darkness a beauty even in the 
commonplace. In common with literature, this in- 
heritance claims some of the beauty of poetry. It has 
for its own the beauty of music, and there are the 
added claims of painting and sculpture. As a part 
of the world's endeavour, this becomes one of the great 
features of life, and contributes largely to the culture 
of the human spirit. Here, as in so many other de- 
partments, the most important caution is to guard 
against superficial study and pretended appreciation. 
We need to look deeply and to feel keenly. Our 
hearts must be open to the best messages, and our lives 
ready for the truth. 

By institutional inheritance we mean to include the 



Self-Activity and Environment 143 

knowledge of institutions which have come to us 
through all the generations. Considered as organisa- 
tions, we think of school, church, and gov- institu- 
ernment, of lodges and societies, and the tional In- 
whole range of organised affairs among men. ®" ance. 
Our student will gain greatly if he has such a know- 
ledge of parliamentary law as will enable him to take 
part successfully in deliberative bodies; he will be all 
the better citizen, if he understands the organisation of 
the government under which he lives, and the means 
by which any given result is obtained. In particular, 
he needs to understand something of the real advance- 
ment which has been made in the problem of govern- 
ment in our country. With the study of the three 
great departments of our government, legislative, 
executive, and judicial, he may be taught that the 
Supreme Court is something almost new in the history 
of government, and that, ranking, as it does, as one 
of the co-ordinate departments of government, it per- 
forms an office among us that is not found in any other 
form of government. Leading then to the great prin- 
ciples of democracy, he learns that, when new states 
are admitted into the sisterhood of states, they enter 
with all the rights and privileges of their elder sisters, 
a thing before unheard of in the history of the world. 

The careful study of the institutions among which he 
lives will open to him a new sense of the organic unity 
of the nation, and give him some idea of the close 
bonds of humanity. 



144 Up Through Childhood 

This is no small inheritance. All through the ages 
there have been dimly or more clearly set forth the love 

Religious ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ outpouring of the spiritual 
Inherit- and moral forces of the universe, and as 
ance. ^^^^ ^^ j^-g ^^^ ^^^ -^^^ Struggled from the 

dark into the light of the Infinite, he has learned les- 
sons which are passed on from generation to generation. 
It is no small thing that man shall learn aspiration, 
that he shall recognise the importance and nature of 
human duty, that he shall know what man has thought, 
loved, hoped, and believed; and most of all that he 
shall recognise the way by which the inner glory, 
divinely planted, streams out into this world, which 
even now is early in the making. 

The journals on physical education, in varying 
terms, insist that weakness is a crime. It is not 

physical weakness alone, but intellectual 
Applica- , , . , , , , . . , 

tions of ^^^ Spiritual weakness, that is criminal; 

this In- many people do wrong because they are not 

®" ^"?® properly equipped to meet the responsibili- 

velopment ties of the position in which life places them. 

of Self- If they can enter upon their inheritance 

Activity. .^, « 

with some measure of success, never per- 
mitting the deluge of knowledge to quench the inner 
light of the spirit, nor to subdue the native activity 
of the mind, they will be so much the better equipped 
for the work of life. In every Young Men's Christian 
Association, and in every university, are to be found 
men who are colossal sponges, absorbing all the know- 



Self- Activity and Environment 145 

ledge and inspiration which the various classes or 
exercises afford, but valuable neither to themselves 
nor to others, except as receivers of surplus products. 
They are hearers only and have long since lost the 
power of keen initiative and vigorous execution. Kach 
student is likely to find in his own nature something 
which responds heartily, hopefully, and helpfully to 
the call which environment makes upon his native 
self- activity. When I think of the multitude of things 
the world offers to be learned, I am reminded of a scene 
in a schoolroom. A little girl was looking off her book 
in a thoughtful way, musing no doubt on some topic 
dear to a child's mind. " What are you doing, 
lyucy ? ' ' said the teacher. * ' I am only thinking, ' ' said 
she. "Come! come! Lucy, this is no place for think- 
ing." The story may be true or false, but the lesson 
points a truth which we cannot afford to ignore. In 
the multitude of things we must not forget, that to 
think is to live. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE) SKNSES 

The senses are the great collectors of material for 
the mental life. Milton's statement that poetry should 

be simple, sensuous, and passionate, applies 
, ." just as well to the poetry of human life, and 

if the senses are trained to be true they will 
bring into the growing mind an abundance of material 
of the most accurate character. They will help to give 
accuracy to every impression, definiteness to every idea, 
and clearness to the thought because the thought ma- 
terial is definitely and accurately presented to the mind. 
The bodily life becomes fine, the mental life becomes 
fruitful, just as they are touched with sound emotion. 
" It is the wholesome human passion which makes the 
simple sensuous life beautiful." The absence of this 
passion dooms the tired worker to drag an endless chain 
through a weary day, month, year, lifetime. The 
senses become the means by which rich and useful 
material is passed to the mind for elaboration. Many 
an eloquent sermon, many a fine bit of teaching, much 
that is wholesome and healthful in life, is lost because 
the senses fail to do their work : the ear does not hear, 

146 



The Senses i47 

the eye does not see, the touch does not report truly. 
Because of these inaccurate or defective reports which 
the senses bring, mental alertness is impossible, and 
the mind settles down to a sort of sodden condition, 
out of which it is impossible that there should come 
any bright, strong, and greatly alive action. But the 
senses may be too finely trained and the nervous system 
too delicately wrought, for as things come storming at 
the gates of sense there is a perfect bombardment of 
the mental life, and we find ourselves unable to dispose 
of one set of ideas before another troop comes charging 
in upon us. The only protection for the conscience 
and the only safety for the mind is to cultivate the 
habit of neglecting such sensations as cannot minister 
to our instruction or growth. We must even neglect 
words, for a word is the sign of an idea, and as these 
come thronging in upon the mind they set up an 
activity which, if out of harmony with the best within, 
will stir a veritable storm of thought. But what is the 
character of the selective agent ? Why is it that a land- 
scape suggests to one man agriculture, and to another 
art, and to a third wealth ? Each man finds in every 
landscape what he brings. Bvery sense has been 
taught to carry its own message and to carry no other 
messages that have presented themselves. 

The touch should be delicate, true, and firm: deli- 
cate, that there may be fine discrimination 

Touch. 
and close, accurate judgments; true, m the 

sense that it is comprehensive and reliable, bearing in 



14^ Up Through Childhood 

to the brain all the messages that it ought to carry; 

firm, that there may be mental grasp and that its 

message may merit confidence. 

The law to be observed in the cultivation of taste is 

rather the development of a few simple, strong, and 

accurate tastes, than a mere artificial and 
Taste. 

uncertain development of a great number. 

Nature itself takes care of the development of taste if 
we allow her the privilege. The most painful com- 
ment on our civilisation is the great number of 
artificial tastes which it insists upon cultivating. A 
thousand things which do not contribute to wholesome 
life are desired and insisted upon to a degree which 
makes it impossible for the simple and natural desires 
of the body to have their manifestation and receive 
their desires. Not long ago a lady was sitting in a 
street car with a child by her side. It was a bright, 
healthy child. The mother tasted a bit of candy and 
offered some to the little thing with its wholesome 
natural tastes. The hand was pushed aside and the 
candy declined, but the mother said: "Do eat some; 
see, mamma likes it." That was one more step toward 
the cultivation of an artificial taste, toward which the 
simple nature of the child had no inclination. The 
same things may be said of various kinds of food, 
drinks, rich gravies, strong spices, and many of the 
condiments, which depend for their sale almost wholly 
upon the demands of tastes which have been artificially 
cultivated. Where men eat to live the strong whole- 



The Senses 149 

some life, these things naturally sink to a secondary 
place. I was once sitting at the table of a friend 
where we had just eaten a very wholesome dinner. 
The dessert was custard pie, and a vigorous, full- 
blooded boy of five had already enjoyed a second help- 
ing. In his impetuous fashion he said: '' Ma, may 
I have another piece ? ' ' Instead of definitely refusing 
or granting his request, she said : * ' Wait, my child, 
until all the others have been helped, and then your 
turn will come if there is any left." For twenty 
minutes that boy sat longing and hoping for another 
piece. This had the efiect of cultivating a longing 
which should have been gratified or as definitely re- 
fused, and this longing she cultivated while she thought 
she was cultivating generosity and self-control. The 
habits of eating may be very largely placed under dis- 
cipline by a wise guidance. The whole range of animal 
appetite, strong, vigorous, and tyrannical, can, with 
wise teaching, be compelled to shape itself in harmony 
with the highest life. 

It is a curious fact that the power of smell is one of 
the most necessary and valuable of all our possessions. 
Though its range of application is narrow, 
it affords protection and develops a close dis- 
crimination altogether beyond the ordinary limits of its 
supposed excellence. There are few kinds of memory 
that are so persistent and completely recognised as the 
memory of odours, and this power if rightly applied 
may contribute in many a dull hour to a high form of 



I50 Up Through Childhood 

aesthetic enjoyment. The protective value of this sense 
is readily recognised when we know the great number 
of unhealthful substances in air and food, from which 
we are warned to turn away by this careful guardian 
of our health and comfort. The aesthetic value is not 
small, and whoever has inhaled the fragrance of the 
new-mown hay, and drawn into his nostrils the delight- 
ful odours of the spring, summer, and autumn as they 
are found in an attractive country, recognises a store 
of memories which give cheer and comfort, and which 
may serve as standards of measurement in the later 
experiences of life. But there are many petty notions 
and whimsical ideas which people have cultivated in 
themselves with the simple purpose of being peculiar, 
and this is nowhere more in evidence than in the com- 
plaints as to various odours, particularly those that are 
necessary and to a degree wholesome in the kitchen 
and dining-room. 

One of the leading writers on evolution has demon- 
strated that man has physically reached his highest 
limit because we now no longer improve the 
sight, but add to its power by means of the 
telescope and the microscope. However that may be, 
any thoughtful teacher must sympathise with the Ger- 
man Emperor when he says that no healthy man has a 
right to look on the world through glasses, that good 
health to the body means good health to the eye. 
Sight has much to do for any individual, and a clear- 
and true-seeing eye brings to him messages of the 



The Senses 151 

greatest value. Near seeing and far seeing both have 
their high offices, and the near-sighted man who by 
means of glasses may be able to recognise his friends 
at a distance and to see the beauty, verdure, and come- 
liness of this fair earth finds that he has entered upon a 
new inheritance. There is a general and a detailed 
method of seeing, and many a man who has travelled 
for years on an accustomed road finds to his surprise 
that a friend trained to detailed inspection can call his 
attention at the first journey to hundreds of things 
which he now sees for the first time. There is not only 
this outer seeing, there is a power of sight which be- 
longs to the mind. There is a definite way of penetrat- 
ing things, of taking hold upon them in a forceful and 
interesting way, so that by means of the outer excita- 
tions we are able to call up from our experience a score 
of details to fill a picture until it is true and lifelike. 
In the chapter on * * What Is Man ? " we have spoken of 
the eye hunger, which is keener in the period of early 
childhood than at any other time, and which, if then 
properly gratified, will result throughout life in a bet- 
ter recognition of the world around than could ever 
come without its training. The open eye is a gift to 
be greatly sought, and is surpassed only by the open 
mind. It is not enough that the eye should be open to 
the things about it, but it must dwell for a sufficient 
length of time upon objects presented so that careful and 
accurate knowledge may be obtained. There is no 
possible hope of securing the full benefit of observing 



152 Up Through Childhood 

without that degree of leisure and that degree of ap- 
plication which will insure a pretty fair disposition of 
any one topic before another is attempted. The greatest 
penalty that city life visits upon the senses of our child- 
ren is the sudden and abrupt change in the subjects 
of attention. The town child goes from show-window 
to show-window or from object to object with such 
haste that there is not time for the mental reaction 
which would really benefit him. The country child 
has, on the contrary, few objects for consideration and is 
likely to ponder each one until he has gathered an in- 
terpretation of its meaning and wrought out its lesson 
for his use in later life. The sudden and abrupt break- 
ing off of attention must lead to carelessness of observa- 
tion, inaccuracy of perception, and general flightiness 
of mind. 

We are coming to see the importance of training the 
eye and ear together, and here and there we are dimly 

coming to know that there are children who 
Hearing. . , , 

are ear-minded and others who are eye- 
minded. Not only does there come to such children 
desire to see, but at a certain stage of their lives the ear 
is hungry for sounds, and a certain rhythm of words or 
sounds will sing itself over and over in their minds, 
giving them keen delight. In the special age of ear- 
mindedness we find the time for all kinds of memory 
work, and then have need to give training in the 
learning of memory gems, maxims, and adages, and 
the whole range of beautiful and noble utterances, 



The Senses 153 

with the assurance that the child shall be enriched 
forever by these exercises which we offer. The very- 
earnest desire which these ear- minded children have 
for pleasing sounds leads to their catching slang 
and giddy phrases and chaffy songs if something 
better be not supplied. Any thoughtful person will 
greatly appreciate the value of ear longings and avail 
himself of the disposition to meet this new and worthy 
need. Children's jingles and pleasing sounds ought to 
come in their own good time, that later life may be 
enriched. 

I have emphasised now the importance of a delicate, 
true, and firm touch, of a taste wholesome, simple, and 

natural, of such cultivation of the sense of 

.,,-., ^ Summary, 

smell as will make it able to assert its true 

value as a protective and an aesthetic agency while sub- 
duing the whimsical and the petty. I have spoken of 
the value of near and of far seeing, emphasising the 
importance of exact observation, and showing that 
there is a period of eye hunger and of ear hunger in the 
course of human experience which must be gratified in 
order to serve for the highest development. I have 
tried to emphasise the importance of accurate observa- 
tion, and to show that the practical educational work can 
take place only among those surroundings which allow 
time for the educational reaction which takes place in 
periods of comparative leisure. There can be no rapid 
hit-and-miss work in the development of any one of the 
senses. I have tried to emphasise the importance of 



154 Up Through Childhood 

training the eye and the ear together, and have, I trust, 
made clear that there are many students who with their 
ear-mindedness must be trained through the ear, and 
many others who because of eye-mindedness must be 
approached through the eye. 



CHAPTKR XII 

ATTENTION 

CoNSCiouSNKSS has been defined as awareness, and 
attention as a focusing of consciousness. When the 
mind is directed toward any object, we term that 
action of the mind " attention." Attention, then, is 
an attitude of the mind. Hear Carlyle: ** Thy very 
attention, does it not mean attentio, a stretching to? 
Fancy that act of the mind, which all were conscious 
of, which none had yet named, — when this new poet 
first felt bound and driven to name it! His question- 
able originality and glowing metaphor was adoptable, 
intelligible; and remains our name for it to this day." 

Attention is voluntary, involuntary, expectant, and 
dispersed. Voluntary attention is the result of will, 
and acts promptly and definitely. The K'nds 
mind comes in contact with the matter to 
which it attends by a series of dashes or charges; like 
a bouncing ball it strikes against the object for con- 
sideration and springs away again, only to be returned 
again and again by the action of the will. Voluntary 
attention cannot be sustained for any great length of 
time, as it depends only upon the will, prompted by 

155 



156 Up Through Childhood 

the sense of duty or profit, or other external incentive. 
Soon it will cease, or change to involuntary attention. 
' ' Because people are attentive when strong interest 
is roused, there is a common idea that attention is 
Attention iiatural, and inattention a culpable fault, 
must be But the boy's mind is much like a frolick- 
^"^ • ing puppy, always in motion, restless, but 
never in the same position two minutes together, 
when really awake. Naturally his body partakes of 
this unsettled character. Attention is a lesson to be 
learned, and quite as much a matter of training as any 
other lesson. A teacher will be saved rnuch useless 
friction if he acknowledges this fact, and, instead of 
expecting attention which he will not get, starts at once 
with the intention of teaching it." — Thring. 

Involuntary attention depends upon interest and 
may continue for an indefinite period. It lies along 

the lines of one's native interests, and in 
Attent* ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ found the great value of making these 

interests as wide as possible. The condition 
which prompts to a sense of ownership in ideas, sights, 
and opinions goes far to enlarge mental life, and the 
student who has been so trained will attend with real 
pleasure to a wide range of statements, accounts, or ex- 
periences which would be altogether ignored by the un- 
trained. The great end in the training of attention is 
to make possible a strong involuntary attention in many 
lines. Here is a striking illustration of involuntary at- 
tention. In his palmy days, S. S. Prentiss of Mississippi 



Attention 157 

was a most magnetic orator. One day when he was 
addressing a public meeting, an old gentleman took 
out his watch and noted the time; just then something 
that the orator said riveted his attention, and the watch 
was forgotten. Soon, as it seemed to him, the orator 
finished his speech with the sentence, " My powers 
fail." The chain of his attention was broken, and the 
eyes sought his watch only to find that the orator had 
been speaking three hours and fifteen minutes and that 
he had held his watch in his hand all this time. 

There is another phase of this matter called ex- 
pectant attention, to which I have before referred. In 
this the mind dwells upon something that is 
expected and done to bring that to pass j^?^\^^ 
which is dreaded or desired. It is well 
known that the thought of an ache or pain in any part 
of the body may soon be replaced by the reality, par- 
ticularly in those who are of a sensitive or nervous dis- 
position. The great market for patent medicines in 
our country is based upon this principle of suggestion. 
Indeed the regular physician gets much better results 
from his medicines when the patient expects a cure. A 
teacher in one of the large schools for colored students 
recently told me that they are compelled to send home 
those who think they have been "conjured." The 
idea takes very strong hold upon these students, and 
in most cases death confirms their belief. 

The particular value of expectant attention will 
readily appeal to the teacher. Children are specially 



15S Up Through Childhood 

liable to the evil or good effects of the expectant mental 
state. Their attention should be diverted from per- 
sonal pain, from the unhealthy, the morbid, the vicious 
in every line, and turned to that which is clean, hope- 
ful, and inspiring. Not only this in all schools, but it 
is of the highest importance so to place a student in 
such relation to his fellows that he may succeed in the 
work which he undertakes. That one should expect to 
fail in the work that he is doing day by day is one of 
the saddest commentaries upon a civilisation which 
we call enlightened. Expectation of the whole being 
should tend toward aspiration, accomplishment, and 
success. 

There is another feature of attention which deserves 
consideration. It is that condition of the mind by 
which we are able to hold ready for use all the im- 
portant statements or knowledge which we have re- 
ceived. I can call it by no better term than "capacity." 
Practice in this line results in remarkable development, 
and as the student listens he finds that he has * * gained 
an abyss where a dewdrop was asked." 

The term "dispersed attention " is used to describe 

that state of consciousness in which one gazes dreamily 

off into space, giving thought to no one thing 

isperse jjiQ^e than another and almost indifferent to 
Attention. 

things near and far. It is not the same as 

day-dreaming; it even more successfully spends one's 

time without profit, and for the most part without 

pleasure. In all the range of mental manifestation 



Attention 159 

there is hardly another form that is so mildly negative. 

It reminds one of the chemist's definition of nitrogen — 

" a gas, colourless, tasteless, odourless." 

The following test will illustrate. This morning 

you are to go again over the path which you have 

traversed a hundred times. Try to see how Attention 

many new things it offers and you will be i^®*^^"i*"^s 

•' ^ -^ . the Current 

astonished to find a great number of objects of Mental 

which you have never before noticed; the at- Life, 

tention has simply ignored them. As is well known, 
feeling plays a large part in the mental life, but any 
feeling which is constantly ignored will in course of 
time take a minor position; and since feeling determines 
so much of conduct, if a certain feeling be ignored the 
action which would be prompted bj' that feeling will be 
largely excluded; thus attention may be instrumental 
in determining conduct. It is well known that we re- 
member chiefly those things to which we give attention. 
Outside of the range of our native interests, the memory 
may be greatly strengthened by giving close attention 
to old experiences when these are introduced into the 
mind. This kind of attention provides for close re- 
lationships and makes memory strong through the laws 
of association. Reasoning, too, depends largely upon 
attention for its direction and for the soundness of its 
conclusions. Attention will bring the mind to rich 
collections of facts on which a sound conclusion may 
be based. The greatness of many men consists not 
so much in a strong mental endowment as in that 



i6o Up Through Childhood 

command of the mind which enables them to direct the 
mind to specific and desirable objects. All men have a 
storm of sights and sounds making constant demands 
upon the attention, and only the man who is great 
enough to ignore the trivial ones is able to reserve to 
his mental life that scope for exercise in which his 
energies may be centred upon a special line of thought 
or action. 

It is generally assumed that attention is a very good 
thing and inattention a very bad one, but only by at- 
Att ntion tending to the few things, instead of hold- 
and In- ing to the many, are we able to make any 
attention, advancement. Indeed the ability to ignore 
the greater number of things in this constant bombard- 
ment is the secret of health to both mind and soul. 
While this is true, it will not do for one to plume 
himself upon his excellence because he does not give 
satisfactory attention. Excellence consists in giving 
attention only to the right things, and the power of at- 
tention is the surest proof of genius. 

A man is not a genius because he gives attention, he 
gives attention because he is a genius. But even a 
Genius genius can ill afford to give attention to un- 
and profitable things. The only hope for sus- 

Attention. ^^[j^^^ attention is that the subject is to have 
something worth hearing and to have the mind pre- 
pared for the presentation of the matter. When the 
mind is ready for new knowledge, it waits for its coming 
as the ear for the footstep long expected: we hear it at 



Attention i6i 

its farthest approach. This setting of the mind, like 
the trigger of a gun that the whole force may go true 
to the mark, is one of the happy arts of the wise 
teacher. The following suggestions will not only be 
helpful to the teacher in directing the class, but they 
will give him a clearer understanding of attention. 

1 . The mind should be prepared for the introduction 
of all new material. This may be done by calling up 
in the mind of the child: 

(a) Closely related knowledge. 

(b) Scenes which will serve as interpreters. 

(c) Feelings similar to those likely to be called up by 
the presentation of new knowledge. 

2. Every new subject should be introduced by object 
or illustration. 

3. Keep the pupil with you eye to eye, except when 
he glances now and then upon the object which you 
use for illustration. But it is not enough that his eye 
seek your face; by questions and answers unexpected 
as to time and place, you must assure yourself that his 
mind also follows. Many a boy will look you earnestly 
in the face while he industriously counts the marbles 
in his pocket. 

4. Do not present many ideas in any exercise. Com- 
pactness of thought is a condition of intensity of 
attention. 

5. Study ways of rousing the curiosity of the pupil. 
If you use illustrative material, see that it is concealed 
from the student until you are ready for its use. 



1 62 Up Through Childhood 

6. Be careful to vary your methods. Do not get into 
such a rut that the student can always tell what you 
are going to say or do. Attention must be transferred 
from one topic to another. lyCt exercises on each topic 
be brief. 

7. Be interested yourself. Interest and the attention 
which it develops are contagious, provided that the 
material presented is suited to the state of development, 
emotional condition, and native interest of the student. 
If not suited to him, there will be no interest. Valuable 
as is the interest of the teacher in the subject, it must 
not be mistaken for the interest of the child. Many a 
teacher has gone on with the lesson in a most hearty 
and self-satisfied fashion, because he has been enjoying 
it, while the child has been kept from showing how 
much he is bored, by his native courtesy or by fear of 
reproof. A teacher who has very carefully outlined the 
lesson and given much attention to the work he has 
planned, thinks it must perforce be interesting. That 
is in no sense true; it is simply something attractive to 
himself, and he may learn on questioning the students 
that they have received neither enjoyment nor profit 
out of his lesson. 

Mental activity is a necessary condition of mental 
life, and with favouring conditions and satisfactory 
variety attention is one of the things which we may 
reasonably expect. But it is sad enough when the 
teacher is the one who distracts the attention. This 
may be done by : 



Attention 163 

(a) References to outside matters. 

(b) By scolding the students. 

(c) By bad location, as when the students are in a 
large room with their eyes naturally directed toward 
some object of native interest. 

(d) By talking too much; many words obscure 
thought. 

(e) And last but not least, in many schools there are 
frequent interruptions from the desk; various kinds of 
outside interferences in the class by the officers of the 
school. I have more than once seen the work of a 
whole class stopped while the superintendent or pastor 
took time to shake hands with the different members 
of the class and inquire about the health of absent 
members of the family. In some of our better schools 
to-day visitors are not admitted to the classes except at 
the beginning with the expectation that they will re- 
main to the close of the session. 

The success of a specialist depends upon his power 
to ignore demands emanating beyond the limits of his 
field. 



CHAPTER XIII 

app:^rckption 

Thk sum of one's ideas, moods, feelings, and ex- 
periences measures his power to interpret knowledge 
and to adapt himself to new conditions. A man 
rightly furnished in these particulars may manifest a 
narrow spirit, but no man however broad his spirit can 
really be broad-minded unless he has a wide range of 
ideas, feelings, and experiences. The dominant inter- 
est in each of the following characters explains his 
special power of interpretation. 

" The botanist sees much in a plant; the horse-dealer 
in a horse; the musician hears much in a piece of 
orchestral music, of whose presence in the sense-per- 
ception the layman has no idea. From the same 
story each hearer interprets something different; out 
of the same laws each party interprets its right; the 
same turn of battle is proclaimed by both armies as a 
victory; out of the same book of nature the different 
readers, men and people, have gathered the most 
diverse things." — VoIvKMAnn, quoted by Gordy. 

Apperception is the process by which new know- 
ledge is introduced into the mind and interpreted by 

164 



Apperception 165 

means of that which is already there. Past experience 
has high value in interpreting new ideas, feelings, and 

ideals. Every man is limited in his power 

Definition, 
to see the truth in proportion as his hori- 
zon is restricted. This principle emphasises the great 
value to be derived from excursions, from travel, from 
meeting new or strange men, things, and conditions. 
These in their own peculiar way afford opportunity for 
the unfolding of the best in a man's life; whatever the 
past has gathered of marvel or surprise becomes by 
elaboration in the process of years a part of the perman- 
ent spiritual possessions and may be used as an inter- 
preter of new things. We remember that a man with 
a certain cast of countenance pursued a certain course 
of behaviour and after some thought we conclude that 
there is a relationship between countenance and char- 
acter, and just in proportion as we have known and 
interpreted the springs of action in one human breast 
may we be able to interpret the springs of action in the 
breast of one who is similar in thought, expression, 
and conduct. 

This phase of the subject is well presented in I^ange's 
Apperception : " It is a well known experience that one 
and the same object seldom occasions pre- ^ q 
cisely similar perceptions in the minds of Carries 

different people. Of the same landscape the ^^^ ^^" 

Spectacles, 
poet's image would differ greatly from that 

of the botanist, the painter's from that of the geologist 

or the farmer, the stranger's from that of him who calls 



1 66 Up Through Childhood 

it home. In the same way, one and the same speech 
is often understood in as many different ways as there 
are hearers. What does not the child see in his toys, 
the devout mind in the objects of his devotion! What 
does not the experienced reader of human nature see in 
the wrinkles and folds, the wilted and weather-beaten 
features of the human face! How much do the gest- 
ures, the play of features, the glowing or fading fire of 
the eye, tell him of the battles and storms of the soul! " 
There is an everlasting struggle in every mind be- 
tween the tendency to keep unchanged and the tendency 
The to conform. Our life is ceaselessly surging 

Struggle, between the conservative and the progress- 
ive forces, and at last we yield. There is a deep 
philosophy in the words of Byron : 

My very chains and I grew friends. 
So much a long communion tends 
To make us what we are ; even I 
Regained my freedom with a sigh. 

It is difl&cult to make new classifications for our 
knowledge and to supply new heads for cataloguing, 
I^g^ when new experiences come to us. With 

Classes for the passing years we become more and more 

now e g®« enslaved; old fogyism, or fixedness of ideas, 
is the destination to which we all are tending. While 
rich experience gives a vast amount of apperceptive 
material, those who are far along in life are disposed to 
ignore new interpretations of it. Instead of permitting 



Apperception 167 

the new to have some part in shaping our ideas and to 
give us a product different from the new or old, we are 
disposed to compel that which we could learn as new 
to unite with some fixed form of the old. ** Genius, in 
truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving 
in an unhabitual way." 

It is a maxim in pedagogy to offer every piece of new 
knowledge to satisfy some pre-existing curiosity. And 
it is often a teacher's most important work Prepare 
to arouse in the student's mind at the time the Mind 
of assigning the lesson such a desire or feel- ° eceive. 
ing of inquiry as will lead him to crave study. There 
is no wiser expenditure of time than that which pre- 
pares the child at one recitation for the instruction to 
be given at the next. If the general direction which 
the new lesson is to take and something of its scope 
and purpose be defined, the child will master the lesson 
with far greater ease and in less time. The idea of 
' ' lyook that point up for yourself ' ' has been carried 
altogether too far. Particularly in the adolescent 
period the child has a great host of problems and ideas 
'which he is working out for himself, and any contribu- 
tion of knowledge which the teacher is able to make 
will be welcome to both mind and heart. It seems 
wisest to set the metes and bounds of the child's lesson 
and indicate the general direction, then let him work 
it out for himself carefully and conscientiously. In 
order to provide abundant exercise for independent 
effort, there should be a certain number of original 



1 68 Up Through Childhood 

problems, questions, or assignments on which he may 
work if time allows and interest prompts. To arouse 
an interest in a subject is the great secret of successful 
work. It is the old question of the awaited footstep 
and the set trigger, discussed under Attention. 

The apperception of a certain piece of knowledge by 
the mind of the student depends, first, upon the char- 
How Ap- acter of the material; second, upon the age 

perception of the student — that is, the development of 
A.cts 

the mind; third, upon the state of the mind 

and heart when the information is presented. As to 
the character of the material, it should be neither too 
elementary nor too advanced, but such as to meet with 
ready reception by the student on his usual plane of 
thought. There are various stages of development 
corresponding to the age and growth of the child. A 
thought which he could welcome at a certain time, if 
presented at an earlier age would not be understood. 

It is of the utmost importance that the child's mind 
and heart should be well disposed toward the know- 
ledge offered by the teacher. Herein rests the import- 
ance of affection and sympathy between the teacher 
and the student. What is known as good-will is often 
sufl5cient to cause the child to receive heartily that 
knowledge which the teacher wishes to present. Not 
only so, but the teacher should avail himself of all the 
past experiences of the child which will contribute to 
the understanding and appreciation of the knowledge 
offered. It is a serious error to introduce into the 



Apperception 169 

child's life a bit of new knowledge or new experience 
so violently as to separate the old and the new, or as to 
destroy the old, unless, perchance, it was wholly evil. 
Herein is the great danger of rudely introducing new 
ideas of religion into the mind of the child. For this 
purpose great patience is needed, and if sometimes he 
does not follow as readity as you could wish, time for 
thought and gentleness in treatment are essential. New 
ideas should be introduced so smoothly, clearly, and 
gently as neither to mar the feeling nor warp the judg- 
ment of the developing student. He can then carry into 
his new mental life the strength and richness gathered 
from past educational experiences. Every teacher should 
be on his guard lest he introduce into the student's mind 
perverted and unreasonable statements of truth which, 
when the child begins to think for himself, his personal 
independence and integrity of thought will compel him 
to reject violently. Just here is the crucial point in 
dealing with the religious doubts of young men. In 
earlier life they have been taught to accept statements 
and ideas which cannot possibly comport with sound 
common-sense. When they begin to reason, they find 
that one statement after another breaks down, and they 
are disposed to cast away the whole system, since some 
parts contain ideas with which they cannot coincide. 
The safeguard against all this is to permeate all teach- 
ing with the reasonable spirit and to welcome doubt, 
when it is sincere and natural, as a step in the learner's 
development. 



i7o Up Through Childhood 

One result of this generous spirit and wise teaching is 

that education becomes a permanent interest of life and 

Education thought. The youth, having been neither 

^ ^^^' unduly surfeited with knowledge nor left to 

manent 

Interest famish for lack of mental nourishment, has 
of Life. a wholesome appetite for all ethical and 
religious things. Such teaching and such an attitude 
of mind will go far to insure a permanent interest in 
the wide range of literary and religious truth which 
the Bible offers. To the learner it will become the 
best interpreter of life's deepest and most sacred 
problems. 

Flower out of the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the 

crannies, 
Hold you here in my hand, root and all, little flower ; 
But if I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in 

all, 
I should know what God and man is. 

Tennyson. 

After all, the first condition for the enrichment of 
a student's life is that he shall have a large amount 
of well related definite knowledge. Many 
teachers pour in a mass of facts, thinking 
that this means enrichment and education, but the facts 
are useless unless they fall into due relation. It is 
necessary that people should see deeply. The world 
has thousands of priests but few prophets. Many peo- 
ple live in the city for years and yet do not know their 
fellow men well. A like condition obtains in the study 



Apperception 171 

of Bible characters or Bible history, and the result is a 
confused mass of unrelated knowledge. It is better to 
know a few characters well, than to know many super- 
ficially. The steps in the teaching process are these: 

1. See that the mind of the learner is ready for the 
introduction of new material. 

2. Choose the right material. 

(a) As to character. 

(b) As to stage of child's development. 

3. Present this material when the child is in the 
right mood. 

4. Give an abundance of good material. 

The poverty of thought in many Sunday-school les- 
sons and in many day-school lessons accounts for the 
great dislike which many students have for study. 
There should be a continual rousing of the mind to a 
consideration of the new relationships. 

Often the student may not be able completely to 
realise the new relationship; but if the material is in- 
troduced at the right age, the recognition will be quite 
satisfactory, and his growth and experience will com- 
plete it. The poet speaks truly when he says that for 
any man to enjoy his inheritance he must first earn it. 
When a child has been thus taught, his knowledge will 
spring fresh and strong to his mind. Relationships 
will be named because they are recognised, and the 
child will feel himself rich in knowledge because his 
knowledge is at call and is suited for daily use. For 
one to teach, while ignoring these principles, is like 



172 Up Through Childhood 

playing upon a violin without strings, or trying to 
pump water into a kettle which has the lid on. All 
such teaching brings the student to a slow death, like 
that which comes from the fumes of a charcoal fire. 
To teach a receptive mind, use knowledge in a clear 
manner, with full recognition of the relationships 
which this knowledge bears to the duties and uses of 
life; that is the method of success and the way to 
happiness. 



CHAPTER XIV 

INTEREST 

Interest is derived from interesse, which means ** in 

the midst of being," or, *' between things." It is often 

taken to be something attachable to the 

Interest. 

object of interest. We speak of " making 
things interesting." There is no such thing as mak- 
ing a lesson or work or play interesting. The interest 
is in the person and not in the thing. It is true that a 
lesson or task may appeal to one, but the basis of that 
appeal is found in the nature of the one who studies 
the lesson or does the task. 

There is something close and personal in interest — a 
kind of proprietorship in the thing in which we are in- 
terested. James has a fine classification of Thg 
the "Selves," and in this he shows how Personal 
much a part of ourselves are things we own, ®™®" ' 
and ideas which we hold. ' * In its widest possible 
sense, however, a man's me is the sum total of all that 
he CAN call his, and not only his body and psychic 
powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and 
children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and 
works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-ac- 

173 



174 Up Through Childhood 

count. All these things give him the same emotions. 
If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they 
dwindle and die away, he feels cast down, — not neces- 
sarily in the same degree for each thing, but in much 
the same way for all." I have in this respect a certain 
sense of proprietorship. One need only to instance 
political or religious things in order to recognise how 
strongly he feels on those things in which he has a 
sense of ownership. 

Now the first condition of a child's interest in a les- 
son, or in the development of character, his 

Interest ^^^ character, is that he have some know- 
and Aim. 

ledge of the end to be gained and the way 

in which this aim may be met by the task which you 
propose to him. 

To this end, it is necessary that knowledge be pre- 
sented at the right age. There are stages in the child's 

development, and a certain piece of know- 
Right Age. , , , . , . , , , 

ledge which at one time he would spurn, at 

a later time, when he is more mature, he will heartily 
welcome. Is it possible, for instance, to impress upon 
the mind of a boy of ten the richness and fulness of 
conjugal affection ? Can a schoolboy appreciate pro- 
blems of state ? Or can one who has lived all his child 
life in selfishness recognise the strength of the noble 
and generous motives which often characterise a man ? 
There is not only a right age but a right time for the 
presentation of knowledge. 
There is a time for everything under the sun, and 



Interest 175 

there is a right time for presenting rich truth to the 

mind. The chosen moment involves something more 

than the right age. It involves rightness 

of mood — in short, that state of mind and _!^ 

Time. 

soul in the child which welcomes anything 
not repulsive. There must also be fitness in what pre- 
cedes and what follows. One can appropriate only 
those things that come near to his nature. 

There must be a choice of right matter. It is useless 
to oflfer material which is unattractive to the child. 
The material must have in itself something 

which appeals to some characteristic of his Right 

Material, 
nature, and there must be continually an 

opening of mind and heart because of the nobleness or 

truth or use of the material which is offered. Right 

material and nothing else must be presented. 

This touches not only the subject of interest, but the 

whole matter of growth. Interest depends upon native 

instincts and past experiences. The only 

... 1 - . - . . . Points of 

possible development of instincts is to contact 

cherish them when they appear, and in the 

age of adolescence these are abundant and strong. If 

encouraged when they first appear, they will become 

important elements in the developing character, or it 

neglected or completely submerged, all except the 

strongest will disappear and the life will forever be 

narrow. The native instincts are such as belong to 

humanity, and may be found in the mind of any child. 

They are these: curiosity, wonder, and activity. 



17^ Up Through Childhood 

1. Curiosity, with a strength that is not to be de- 
nied, leads the mind into untried and sometimes pain- 
ful paths, but on the whole it is a most beneficent trait, 
and brings the child into contact with many new, in- 
teresting, and helpful forces. 

2. Wonder is strong in the nature of the child, par- 
ticularly in the nature of the young child. It is that 
which leads him to adore and aspire. The world calls 
him on every side. His mind is hungry for the new, 
the strange, the marvellous. Even superstitions may 
have a tremendous hold upon him, but these he will 
outgrow and be the richer for the experiences they 
have induced. 

3. Activity is a law of life. The body is full of long- 
ing for action, and so with the soul. Both cry out for 
exercise. Activity is a law of the child's growth as 
well as of his interest, and in proportion as he is active 
will his interest extend to many subjects and be de- 
veloped on many sides. 

How remarkable is the effect of these native instincts: 
curiosity, wonder, and love of activity. Add to these 
experience, and the growing mind rapidly adapts itself 
to new conditions. From his experience, enriched by 
moments of joy or days of happiness, bound to the 
new, strange, and marvellous, he is able to take hold 
firmly upon things which at an earlier age he did not 
think of touching. Experience is a great interpreter, 
and either by knowledge which he already holds, or by 
that which he receives by transfer, he is able to inter- 



Interest 177 

pret many new and interesting things. Experience is 
a great teacher, and it prepares the way for teaching. 
He that has lived in the busy haunts of men cannot 
fully appreciate solitude, and he that has lived under a 
government monarchical in form and spirit has not any 
just conception of the deep love which we hold for 
republican institutions. In short, though the native 
instincts may be the same, experience determines the 
direction which one's later life shall take. 

When our presentation of material begins to shade 
off into what is abstract and remote from life, the stu- 
dent's attention begins to fail. Whoever can keep in 
real contact with the things which have life and warm 
human interest may be pretty sure that his hearers will 
follow him. This is only another way of saying that 
human beings are interested in the fundamental ques- 
tions of humanity, and that whoever has a real con- 
tribution to offer for the welfare of his kind may be 
pretty sure of an attentive hearing, provided only that 
he presents his knowledge in such a way that this rela- 
tionship may be recognised. There is a kind of tradition 
that it is not quite scholarly to employ the concrete in 
teaching; we sometimes feel that it denotes a hopeless 
mental inferiority, and so we go on with the common- 
place of abstraction until we tire out ourselves and our 
hearers. Any teacher who has real human interests 
need not fail of sympathetic hearers, provided he knows 
the pathway to its effectual expression in the terms of 
other people's lives. ** Between your thought, your 



178 Up Through Childhood 

interest, and the interest which you would awaken in 
another man lies the barrier of your own personality. 
Over and through this barrier your idea must pass be- 
fore it reaches the other man; and if your life, manner, 
and personality are inflexible and ineffectual, your 
thought will lose just so much in the passage from you 
to him." I^earn to live. Everything turns toward the 
art of life. I^ife is the great translator and the great 
translation. 

There is not only this hunger of the body in general, 
but there are times when there are special hungers. 

First, the hunger of the eye, which prompts 
Special ^ ^-^^^^ ^^ i. j^^^ ^^ ^^^ ,, j^ j^ ^^^ ^-^^ 

Hungers. 

natural eye, but the eye of the mind, which 

longs for knowledge to be supplied through the sense 
of sight. There is a like hunger of the ear, which 
revels in sounds, and if these are poetical, attractive, 
and rhythmical, the whole nature finds satisfaction in 
them. 

The supreme value of interest is that it gives the 
warm human touch to any subject which lies near to 
the student's life and thought. When he 
fi^t ^\ reaches some degree of maturity, he is 
greatly helped by being taught the nature 
of his powers and activities and the general plan of his 
development. The knowledge of the processes of his 
own education may be overdone, but so long as this 
knowledge does not outrun his interest in his own de- 
velopment, there is no need to fear. The highest pos- 



Interest 179 

sible service that can be rendered to any human being 
is to arouse in him a steadfast interest in his own de- 
velopment. Whenever a boy or a man takes charge of 
his own growth and life with the purpose of bringing 
to their highest possible development the powers which 
have been entrusted to him, he is on the highway to an 
excellence and a success which can never be gained for 
him by school or teacher. In a very high and true 
sense, a man is the architect of his own fortune; not 
because he lays out his life plans, but because his life 
plans once having been revealed to him, his whole en- 
ergy is focused upon the fulfilment of this as a sacred 
trust. A child should understand fully and clearly 
those things which are necessary steps in his progress, 
but he need not understand all the things which he 
sees or hears. Often the wisdom of his parent or 
teacher must go beyond him, and he will store away 
plans, statements, and ideas, the significance of which 
he understands only in part at the time. The secret 
of making things clear is to present them under favour- 
able conditions and in some recognised relation to the 
student's experience, that he may make the most im- 
portant practical connections. 

This is the great office of illustrations, but every 
illustration should be like a tailor-made coat, an exact 
fit. Illustrations serve their purpose only 

when they really illustrate the ideas they "lustra- 
tions, 
are said to teach. Any illustration which 

is more cumbersome than the point it is to make clear 



i8o Up Through Childhood 

is a delusion and a snare, and no matter how interest- 
ing it may be in itself, it has no teaching value. Never 
use an illustration which does not illustrate. Never 
use an illustration in which the word to be illustrated 
has a radically different meaning from that used in the 
illustration. For example, the music teacher who was 
trying to develop in the minds of his pupils the idea of 
pitch was very unfortunate when he called the minds 
of the children to the material which the boatmen use 
to caulk the cracks in their boats. The words are used 
with a wholly different meaning in these two cases. 

"By awakening and gratifying the imagination, the 
truth finds its way more readily to the heart and makes 
a deeper impression on the memory. The story, like a 
float, keeps it from sinking; like a nail, fastens it in 
the mind; like the feathers of an arrow, makes it strike; 
and like the barb, makes it stick." — GuThrik. 

*' George Herbert says : ' It is an ill mason that re- 
fuseth any stone. And there is no knowledge but, in 
a skilful hand, serves either positively as it is, or else 
to illustrate some other knowledge.' In all ages they 
have been the greatest powers, both in the pulpit, in 
the class-room, and on the platform, who have kept 
this truth in mind. The Fathers of the early Church, 
who lived in days nearest to those of the Son of man — 
the Puritans, whose names are inspiration still — enrich 
their discourses with simile, metaphor, and anecdote. 
These made all nature, all history, all the lives of men 
their treasury, out of which to bring the * new ' things 



Interest i8i 

which were to embellish and enforce the ' old.' " — Dr. 

W. M. PUNSHON. 

The heart is one of the great conditions of interest, 
and in many instances it is a supreme condition. Curi- 
osity, wonder, love of activity, play a large 

Heart 
part in developing and maintaining interest; Power. 

but the teacher who would do his most suc- 
cessful work in moulding character and determining 
action and power with the whole strength of his nature, 
will take hold on the heart of the student. lyOve beck- 
ons with many hands and has a thousand cords of in- 
terest which can never be found in the simple play of 
the intellect. 

* ' Our intellectual and actual powers increase with our 
affections. The scholar sits down to write, and all his 
years of meditation do not furnish him with one good 
thought or happy expression; but it is necessary to 
write a letter to a friend, — and forthwith troops of 
gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with 
chosen words." — Kmkrson. 

But there must be a clear and sharp distinction be- 
tween the attitude of interest and interest itself. Many 
children, because of their desire to win approval or be- 
cause of their real affection, will spend much time and 
energy and make marvellous pretences to an interest 
which they do not feel. 



CHAPTKR XV 

MEJMORY 

Thk basis of memory is believed to be in the brain; 

the act of remembering seems to involve a change in the 

arrangement of the brain cells. Memory is 
Location 
of Memory, commonly spoken of as if it were a single 

power of the mind, but, in truth, we have 

many memories. One person remembers names, another 

remembers faces and forgets names, and yet another 

recalls sounds, odours, dates, or events most readily. 

We may consider memory under three heads: 

(a) General Retentiveness. 

Heads. ""^^ ^^) Relationships. 

(c) Recall and Recognition. 
The first is recognised as a physiological condition of 
the brain due to native qualities, and it probably can- 
not be improved by any amount of culture. However, 
its best work is insured by the vigour of health in the 
system, and by the habit of prompt, strong, and ener- 
getic activity of the mind in all directions. The firm 
and steady intensity of the intellectual life is greatly 
to be desired for memory, as well as for the highest 
manifestation of the other powers. 

182 



Memory 183 

The second, Relationship, includes the whole range 
of mental relationships which contribute to remember- 
ing, and often to the clearer understanding of a subject. 
These relationships are not made in any arbitrary 
fashion, but are founded upon the relations of a part to 
the whole, or of one idea to its fellow. Most of the 
higher forms of remembering are dependent upon the 
right recognition of relationships. And there is no 
doubt that this is the most helpful field for the culti- 
vation of memory. Any culture in this direction im- 
proves not only the memory but the whole mental life. 
There is no doubt that much which is done in this 
direction is not really profitable. And this, because 
the relationships are not those belonging to nature, but 
are founded upon ideas, or characteristics which are 
assumed rather than real. 

This power of the mind acts through retentiveness, 
and brings back thoughts or feelings which have before 
been in the consciousness. At some time Recall and 
we recognise these as having been in the Recogni- 
mind before. Satisfactory recognition im- "' 

plies that this knowledge has at first been introduced 
into the mind in its true relations. This granted, we 
may, with occasional repetition, depend upon our 
memories to recognise any material before introduced. 

Joseph Cook says: *' Attention is the mother of 
memory, and interest the mother of attention. To 
secure memory, secure both her mother and her 
grandmother." Attention, accuracy, and trust are 



1 84 Up Through Childhood 

fundamental considerations in improving the memory. 
There must be close attention to the thing to be re- 
Conditions iiiembered — accuracy in every part and in 
of Remem- noting the relation of these parts, and that 
enng. confidence in the memory or trust of it which 
will lead to a firm and definite recall. Better thinking 
means always a better memory, because we then place 
things in their right relations. "Anything to be re- 
membered and recalled at w411 should be introduced 
into the mind in a recognised relation to something 
already in the mind," — that is, those ideas in the 
mind with which it naturally belongs. 

Nature, the kind old nurse, so much wiser than we 
with our petty systems and firm exactions, is always 
on hand to give the child training in this great human 
method of recording impressions and experiences. The 
native instincts are rising up again and again to make 
this law known and obeyed, and in memory more than 
in any other kind of mental activity one may readily 
recognise the part played by interest. 

The boy who has great difficulty in reciting a gram- 
mar lesson of ordinary length will spend the afternoon 
at a ball game and recount to you without one mistake 
all the varied experiences of the game and the fortunes 
of the individual players. He remembers the thing 
that his heart is in. Even the little girl who may for- 
get the time to do the errand or perform the little task 
which has been set for her can readily remember the 
place where she would make some purchase for her 



Memory 185 

own pleasure, or the size and kind of a doll she wishes 
for her play-room. And not only with the younger 
children, from babyhood to manhood and womanhood, 
we remember the things for which we care most. 
The great secret of getting the child to remember is 
to get him to care tremendously for the things we would 
have him retain. This is the lesson: getting by heart 
as well as by head will make him remember forever. 
But granted that one sets out definitely to memorise 
certain things, it is well enough to observe some of the 
common-sense rules. 

1. Let the attention be strong and ready. 

2. Let the will be favourably disposed toward the 
task assigned. 

3. See that the ideas are introduced into the mind in 
a recognised relation with each other and with material 
already stored. 

4. Let the image be vivid. The child must not learn 
words, he must learn things. There must be no hazi- 
ness in the mental perspective, but sharp, clear-cut, and 
definite impressions. The mind must look out keenly 
and strongly and recognise the things to be considered. 
It is very important that the emphasis should be laid 
upon real things rather than upon the words by which 
things are called. A word is the sign of an idea, but 
if the thought cannot be carried to the mind there is 
little value in storing away the husk. After the gen- 
eral idea has been gained, and after this idea has been 
put into the various new forms, naturally it comes to 



1 86 Up Through Childhood 

be recognised as an old friend, and the matter of repeti- 
tion will have great value. 

And this repetition must give due heed to the truth 
that some children are eye-minded and others ear- 

o .... minded. Not a few, because of their natural 
Repetition. ' 

power of rhythm, and the strong word-hun- 
ger, gather up all the ideas, and put them in definite 
form just because these have come to them in a pleas- 
ing fashion, and have stamped themselves upon the 
receptive ear. Others by means of the eye will gain 
new truth with wonderful clearness and store this away 
in the most pleasing and satisfactory fashion. And 
this repetition, if wisely done, will go far toward fixing 
permanently the material which we would put into the 
possession of the child. It must be done over and over 
again, but not heedlessly and carelessly. The repeti- 
tion must be a conscious, purposeful, and definite piece 
of work calling for mental instincts and vigour, with 
a constant effort to avail one's self of the large help of 
strong, true, and natural associations. This will come 
into use more and more as the student tries new pieces 
in the wall of knowledge, and fits into the right place 
the thing that he learns. The need is that repetition 
which involves repeating a statement and recognising 
the right relations. 

So varied and abundant is the knowledge that is de- 
sirable, and, indeed, so vast is the amount that is now 
absolutely necessary to one who lives among cultivated 
people, that the only hope for a child is to begin early 



Memory 187 

and improve every moment of the impressionable age 

of childhood in acquiring those things which are best 

worth learning. It is not necessary for a 

child to wait until he is able to understand 5^^^" 

Early. 

everything which he commits to memory. 
The rich treasures of the English Bible should 
early be stored in his mind. lyCt him learn the Ten 
Commandments, the Beatitudes, some of the Psalms, 
and such selections as you wish him to hold as a per- 
manent possession. The Twenty-third Psalm and 
some other passages may be explained in a way to 
arouse a deep interest, even in a young child. Other 
passages may be learned without a full understanding 
on the part of the child. As he grows older, some of 
the rich treasures of English literature may be added 
to his possessions. That parent is wise who gives his 
child that educational oversight which will provide 
him with a rich and varied knowledge for his mature 
years. 

It is not enough that one shall remember well. 
Other powers must be cultivated and cultivated 
definitely for the development of general 
efiiciency. The question is sometimes raised and the 
whether memory is not a direct hindrance to Higher 
higher powers. There is little doubt that 
from the side of keeping in mind the relationship be- 
tween ideas, memory performs a service of the greatest 
value to the mental life. But there is a kind of teach- 
ing in the form-studies, with little emphasis upon the 



1 88 Up Through Childhood 

content-studies, which has given us children by the 
thousand who have the greatest facility in recalling 
words, statements, and conclusions, without any ade- 
quate knowledge of their use and relationships. In 
other words, they are taught to remember but not to 
think. Hear Condillac: 

** I grant that the education which cultivates only 
the memory may make prodigies, and that it has 
done so; but these prodigies last only during the time 
of infancy. He who knows little by heart, knows 
nothing. He who has not learned to reflect has not 
been instructed, or, what is still worse, has been poorly 
instructed." 

Kant's criticism: " Men who have nothing but mem- 
ory are but living lexicons. The best way to compre- 
hend is to do. What we learn the most thoroughly is 
what we learn to some extent by ourselves." 

Too little emphasis is placed on memory as a treasure 
house. The wear and tear of daily life tends to rob 
Memory ^^^ ^^ ^^ much of the joy and beauty and 
a Treasure freshness of youth that if in age he may lay 
under tribute the treasures stored in a well- 
spent youth he is not only rich for all his life, but finds 
these treasures developing new degrees of excellence 
and reinforcing his mind in the hour of sorest need. 
There comes a great temptation — and an inspiring 
quotation, whether poetry or Scripture, comes to make 
him strong. There comes a time of discouragement — 
and the ray of hope bursts through the clouded sky of 



Memory 189 

his life. There comes an hour of doubt — and the high 
faith which has been stored in the mind and heart is 
brought back again, so that he mounts up as an eagle, 
can run and not be weary, can walk and not faint. 
Visions are of the future and of the past — those of the 
past are in the keeping of memory. But memory has 
not alone joyful things. We are to a great degree 
slaves to the life we have led, of the experiences we 
have borne, and he who has no joy in youth and no 
high true pleasure in manhood must necessarily look 
forward to gloomy rest in old age. Life has lessons 
enough that are bitter, and all those things that are of 
this sort may well enough be turned aside from the life 
of the growing child. Many an experience has burned 
into the mind with the bitterness of sorrow, remorse, 
or suffering, and has left impressions which all the joys 
of life cannot efface. I have stood with pleasure on the 
shore of the sea as the great waves came rolling in and 
dashed themselves upon the beach: there was some- 
thing of majesty in the dash of the ocean, and some- 
thing of the high pleasure of the joyous life as the 
great waves threw themselves upon firm land. But 
another at my side has looked upon this scene with 
pain and with sorrow of heart, and beckoned me to 
turn from the cruel waves that robbed him of the friend 
of his youth. There is not one of us but has sad and 
sorry memories he would be glad to bury in the deep 
sea. It is a part of this eternal law of memory that the 
things that are deeply imprinted must abide. When 



190 up Through Childhood 

we realise that a life may be full of beauty and joy; 
that fine, and rich, and high treasures may be stored; 
that there comes day by day to the willing mind and 
ready heart an insight, a peace, and a hope that is 
more than a hope of earth, what need is there to urge 
that these be cherished, and that life be made fine, and 
high, and beautiful, so that these pictures may throng 
upon our memories, making them treasure houses of 
strength and inspiration when the hand begins to 
tremble and the sight begins to fail? For the long 
years of God we may have no richer treasures than the 
memories of a life well spent. 

Among the many beautiful legends of the lost Atlan- 
tis is one told, among the simple peasantr}^ of Brittany, 
of the buried city of Is, lying beneath the waters of the 
sea near the coast. The sailors say that the spires of 
the buried churches may sometimes be seen in the 
trough of the waves, and that in times of profound 
calm the church bells may be faintly heard beneath 
the still waters, tolling the passing hours and calling a 
shadowy congregation to their devotions. 

In many a human heart there lies hidden a city 
of the past, from which, in the calm evening of life, 
memory will sound forth its chimes, calling the soul to 
contemplation of the past, with thoughts of joy or sor- 
row, as the memories of that past may be. It is safe 
to assume that if a man could see the end from the be- 
ginning, his life would be governed by different rules. 

"As we sit in the great afternoon of life, watching 



Memory 191 

the lengthening shadows and the deepening twihght, 
the shadowy procession of the past goes by, travers- 
ing the halls of memory, a weird and startling panorama. 
Blessed is he who is able to gaze upon it unmoved and 
without a blush. But to him who sees the ghosts of 
his youthful follies and crimes stalk by, what a sharp 
pang comes, in the reflection that each one left a scar 
on his soul which can never be effaced. 

" To the old age that has kept the true beacon-light 
in view on the voyage; that has carefully studied the 
chart which the experience of the ages has proven to 
be the only correct guide; that has taken the Great 
Pilot on board at the proper time, — to such an old age 
the last days are the best days, and memory brings 
nothing but a deeper joy." — Cow£;n. 



CHAPTER XVI 

IMAGINATION AND ITS CUIvTURE 

ThK real meaning of imagination can perhaps best 
be appreciated in masterpieces of poetry. Such works 
have come down to us from the past, but they are also 
created in our own day. Kipling's tribute to Cecil 
Rhodes is an example. One stanza will suffice: 

It is his will that he look forth across the world he won — 
The granite of the Ancient North, great spaces washed with sun. 
There shall he patient make his seat (as when the death he 

dared), 
And there await a people's feet in the path that he prepared. 

This poem and the giant soul it sings are worth a 
thousand definitions! When we begin to analyse we 
sink to the commonplace. 

Imagination is the act or power of com- 
bining the products of knowledge in modi- 
fied, new, or ideal forms. 

The ethical imagination is used in conceptions of 
life and conduct; the philosophical imagination is 
used in philosophical inventions and discoveries and 
is that action of the mind which combines things, 
acts, events, and relationships; the poetic imagina- 

192 



Imagination and its Culture 193 

tion is creative and is used in forming elevating 
pictures or artistic ideas which find expression in 
rhythmical language. 

There are two general types of imagination. 

1. The kind which presents images very nearly like 
things we have seen, felt, or heard. These are images 
of memory. 

2. That type which forms a mental picture wholly 
different from anything we have ever seen. This is 
the creative imagination, and is of the greatest value in 
all fields of practical activity. 

The common attitude toward imagination is worthy 

both of remark and censure. Not a few have looked 

upon this as an evil power, because, forsooth, it has 

sometimes been turned to an evil use. It ought to be 

one of the brightest, strongest, and most helpful of all 

the powers of the mind. So long as the mind is 

steadied by a sane attitude toward the world and its 

problems, there is no danger in the far flights of the 

imagination. I have often been struck with the breadth 

of view of those who will allow their imagination to 

soar out into realms of the unknown. This petty fear 

which keeps the mind wholly within the realm of time 

and sense limits its activity to the bread-and-butter 

problems, and greatly restricts both its usefulness and 

its power. The mind returns from these far journeys 

laden with the spoil of many climes, and it is all 

material of a kind that may be woven into the texture 

of daily life, shooting through here a golden thread 
13 



T94 Up Through Childhood 

and there a ray of beauty, until the commonplace is 
transformed into the sublime. 

The first great value of imagination is the 

Value range that it gives to thought. There 

of the Im- comes to one a consciousness of largeness 

and vigour corresponding to his ideals. 

These large ideals call forth: 

1. The consciousness of strength. 

2. The desire for symmetry in ideas and expression, 
which develops the sense of beauty. 

With all these, and right moral ideas, agreeableness 
will be as natural as any product which springs from 
right planting. Next comes the remarkable ofiice of 
imagination in the realm of human sympathy. The 
very essence of the injunction, " Put yourself in his 
place," is found in the value of the imagination, to put 
before us the opportunities, difficulties, and discourage- 
ments which come to one whose interest we are con- 
sidering. The highest and the best of all is the ideal 
of excellence which may be placed before the mind in a 
form so attractive that the student will welcome it as 
his highest good; and with excellence before him as a 
growing ideal, he will mount higher and higher into 
the noblest things. 

The secret of making things real rests supremely 
with the imagination. The element of reality to one 
man is not the element of reality to another, and the 
teacher, in order to make things seem real to the child, 
must be able to see all the conditions from the child's 



Imagination and its Culture 195 

point of view; knowing the child's point of view and 
knowing his own, he is able to make real to the child 
the larger vision by interpreting his knowledge in 
terms of the child's thought and experience. This 
is the whole secret. 

The alert mind finds abundance of material for the 
use of the imagination. That furnished by any of the 
five senses may thus be combined, although Materials 
that supplied by sight, hearing, and touch for Im- 

furnishes the greatest amount of material for ^S^^^^^^^- 
the use of this power. The raw materials for the 
action of this power are abundant, and he who has the 
seeing eye and the hearing ear will accumulate treasures 
in store. The varied colours of the sky; the great and 
beautiful clouds, with their towers and battlements, or 
their soft inviting whiteness; the thousands of leaves 
on the trees; the flowers that look out to us from every 
corner; the birds as they fly here and there, or soar 
away in the dim blue; the Milky Way with its myriads 
of glittering stars, the stately planets and the sun in 
its splendour, bring to us from the wide realm of 
nature treasures for this power of the mind. 

The realm of literature is not less fruitful in materials 
of the highest and most profitable kind, bold pictures, 
stately conceptions, varied and remarkable ideas and 
ideals; subtle analyses of human character and of the 
whole range of the myriad realities of the soul shine 
out from the pages written by creative minds. There 
is the "myriad-minded" Shakespeare, who climbed 



19^ Up Through Childhood 

every height of human aspiration, and sounded every 
depth of human woe and passion. He saw nature and 
life in such varied aspects that Coleridge calls him 
"the thousand-souled Shakespeare." There is Milton 
with his high, chaste spirit, his strong, sublime, and 
beautiful conceptions. With him the ruined arch- 
angel is a tremendous conception, **no longer the petty 
mischief-maker, the horned enchanter, of the middle 
age, but a giant and a hero, whose eyes are like eclipsed 
suns, whose cheeks are thunder-scarred." But Milton 
climbs highest when he bows to God, and lifts up his 
voice: 

Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer 
Before all temples, the upright heart and pure. 

The sphere of art also abounds in material. Here 
the artistic creation of a sublime cataract, a storm at 
sea, a pleasant landscape, and the human face with its 
play of joy, sorrow, or passion, is vividly set forth. 
Material is never lacking; the one lack is knowledge 
and sympathy in appropriating it. Definite images 
should always be formed, and these should stand out 
so clearly that they seem to live in the mind of him 
who forms them. In a direct preparation for his work, 
the reader should gain for himself and offer to his 
students clear-cut, richly coloured, and truly formed 
images in the field of their study. I^et the land and 
the men of the Bible stand before them as things alive. 
Seek from them oral descriptions, and by means of 
thought-power correct these from time to time until 



Imagination and its Culture 197 

they square with truth. At first have the child de- 
scribe certain scenes or certain individuals, by and by 
let him tell the full story with the various paintings 
of scenes which imagination can furnish. 
Imagination has a practical value. 

(a) In Business. By means of imagination the busi- 
ness man is able to forecast from the beginning the 
outcome of a certain business venture; the The 

real-estate dealer sees in the potato-field at Jf"^ ^^^^ 

^ Value of 

the edge of the city a stretch of handsome imagina- 
streets lined with elegant houses; the in- *ion. 

ventor sees in a few wheels, cogs, and levers possibilities 
which to the common mind are wholly unseen. 

(b) In Social I^ife. No woman can successfully 
order a reception or other social function without plac- 
ing before her mind the general conditions to be met, 
the nature and characteristics of her guests, and some 
pretty satisfactory prospect of the whole entertainment 
as it will appear at the time; in dealing with a single 
friend it is necessary to have some general impression 
of what his attitude may be and the desires he seeks to 
gratify. 

(c) In Teaching. The first great purpose of all 
teaching is to take the child from his present position 
of weakness, ignorance, and inefficiency, and to carry 
him to the highest degree of excellence which his 
nature may attain. The teacher has a large scope for 
the imagination, as development to the highest possible 
degree is the conception necessary to make a success 



19^ Up Through Childhood 

of his work. Subordinate to the greater aim are a 
hundred little aims which must be present in the 
teacher's mind when he is working to the accomplish- 
ment of that aim, and he must see how a minor aim 
will contribute to the large aim. In other words, he 
must see that the proper reciting of a lesson or correct 
performance of a task will result in training that will 
make a character efficient for service. 

(d) In Government. In government there must be 
present to the mind of the statesman many moral con- 
ditions which obtain to-day, and the prospects to be 
brought out in years to come. This was in the mind 
of Henry Clay as he stood upon the Alleghany Mount- 
ains, and, looking far into the great Mississippi Valley, 
said: "I hear the tramp of the coming millions." 
There comes with that vision the need of preparation 
for them, and however little and cheap any man may 
be as a politician, if he once gets the statesman's 
vision, there is a tremendous call upon all that is good 
within him to rise up and declare itself for the benefit 
of the coming millions. 

(e) In Religion. Imagination furnishes the greatest 
antidote to pessimism. In general, as one looks over 
the strife and annoyance and irritation manifested in 
religious circles, and as he sees the children who are 
inferior, living on a low plane, or who are falling away 
altogether, he is able, by means of the imagination, to 
look to the great future and in that hope find courage 
to say: 



Imagination and its Culture 199 



I live for those who love me, 

Whose hearts are kind and true ; 
For the heaven that smiles above me, 

And awaits my spirit too ; 
For all human ties that bind me, 
For the task my God assigned me, 
For the bright hopes left behind me, 

And the good that I can do. 

I live to learn their story. 

Who 've suffered for my sake ; 
To emulate their glory. 

And follow in their wake ; 
Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages. 
The noble of all ages. 
Whose deeds crown history's pages, 

And time's great volume make. 

I live to hail that season. 

By gifted minds foretold, 
When men shall live by reason, 

And not alone by gold ; 
When man to man united, 
And every wrong thing righted. 
The whole world shall be lighted. 

As Kden was of old. 

A. 1(. Banks. 

lyong ago it was said, **As a man thinketh in his 
heart, so is he. ' ' This depends upon imagination for its 
realisation, and grows out of the truth that little by lit- 
tle as man ponders upon great courses or seeks to ac- 
complish remarkable things, the result comes at last, and 
he finds the Ideal of yesterday has become the Reality 
of to day. And this is true because striving for the 
ideal, he advances step by step toward its attainment. 



200 Up Through Childhood 

Longing 

Of all the myriad moods of mind 

That through the soul come thronging, 
Which one was e'er so dear, so kind, 

So beautiful as longing ? 
The thing we long for, that we are 

For one transcendent moment. 
Before the Present poor and bare 

Can make its sneering comment. 

Longing is God's fresh heavenward will 

With our poor earthward striving ; 
We quench it that we may be still 

Content with merely living ; 
But, would we learn that heart's full scope 

Which we are hourly wronging, 
Our lives must climb from hope to hope 

And realise our longing. 

Lower,!,. 

But even the most excellent things are liable to 
abuse, and the signal ignorance as to imagination and 
the frequent misuse of this power have blinded us to 
its great value. The habit of day-dreaming and castle- 
building which is more or less common to youth, when 
carried to a point where dreaming displaces effort can- 
not be too strongly condemned. Anything like an ex- 
clusive reading of novels in the usual manner, often 
leaves the reader without sufficient determination and 
heartiness of effort to do valuable work. The call for 
every dream-structure is a building of fact, and for 
every fancy a reality. 

When I was a beggarly boy. 
And lived in a cellar damp. 



Imagination and its Culture 201 

I had not a friend or a toy, 
But I had Aladdin's lamp : 
When I could not sleep for cold, 
I had fire enough in my brain, 
And builded with roofs of gold 
My beautiful castles in Spain ! 

Since then I have toiled day and night, 
I have money and power good store. 
But I 'd give all my lamps of silver bright 
For the one that is mine no more ; 
Take, Fortune, whatever you choose, 
You gave and may snatch again ; 
I have nothing 't would pain me to lose, 
For I own no more castles in Spain ! " 

I^OWBI/I*. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THOUGHT AND THOUGHT CUI.TURK 

Thinking is that process of the mind by which we 
compare things with each other, note the points of 
agreement and of difference, and classify 

e ni ion. ^-^^^ |^ accordance therewith. Thinking 
is a study of relationships. It investigates the con- 
clusions as to their truth or their falsehood, and ex- 
tends to the examination of materials and the relation 
of these to each other and to the ends sought. 

The fundamental condition for right thinking is the 

receptive attitude of the mind, and such experience and 

insight as will enable one to test the material 
The - - . . -TT- 1 

Funda- "USed, and the method of usmg it. With- 

mental out the receptive mind it is impossible for 
Condition. ^^^ ideas to be received at their true value; 
and without insight it is impossible that ideas received 
can have their right relationship or proper force. Im- 
agination is one of the greatest aids in thinking; it is 
of special value in business lines. Only a man with a 
powerful imagination could have placed before his mind 
the practical business advantages of the telephone. 
Many a large business has unfolded itself slowly. 

203 



Thought and Thought Culture 203 

Years ago a man who was out of employment was one 
day asked to go on a train and take charge of the 
packages between stations. His mind turned readily 
to classification, and with the growing demands of the 
business he classified the duties and activities, and or- 
ganised an extensive business, which is now known as 
one of the great express companies of this country. 

By means of the imagination we are often able to 
profit by the experiences of others. To lay under 
tribute the intellectual product of other minds, and 
appropriate their experiences to our needs and uses, is 
one of the highest arts of life. Thinking broadens and 
deepens the mind. A man with many interests will be 
shallow only when he has not sufficient time and en- 
ergy to think deeply and carefully of each. No thinker 
can afford to receive into his mind a great mass of un- 
digested material which he will not soon have time to 
classify. Just here is found the greatest disadvantage 
in our present cramming system of education. In the 
student's wild effort to accumulate as many facts as 
possible in order to meet the grind of examination, he 
often fails to get things in their relationships, and even 
to know the thing itself. Any kind of successful 
mental work requires time for the mental reaction. 
Cramming does have a certain value. The rapid re- 
view of the subject, which that method necessitates, 
makes possible a general view of the field, which a 
slower method of study does not secure. But that 
general view of the field is better taken at the 



204 Up Through Childhood 

beginning than at the end of a study. Then, too, life 
has many conditions where it is necessary to mass mate- 
rial, as with a lawyer who is called to an unusually rapid 
preparation for his case before court. An orator is 
often called upon to make an address on very short 
notice, and must get together a large mass of new 
material, which cannot possibly have time to become 
a part of his thought and life. But, whatever may be 
the advantages of the practice in cramming as a pre- 
paration to meet emergencies, it cannot be considered 
as a satisfactory preparation for the regular and steady 
duties of life. 

For all sound thinking there must be abundance of 
thought-material. This thought-material, from the 
., - first, should be arranged according to some 

of Thought- general plan. The beginner will often 
Material, classify the subject of his thought as be- 
longing to the animal, mineral, or vegetable kingdom. 
Presently he will consider the field of the inner and the 
outer life; or he may consider material under some of 
the great branches of human knowledge, as literature, 
history, or science. Unconsciously the good student 
classifies the material around some thought centre in 
his own mind. This thought centre may be the result 
of some minor experiences, of a proverb, or of some 
striking statement which he has heard. As rapidly as 
possible he will translate all knowledge into the terms 
of his own mind, and be able to use it as current intel- 
lectual coin for the payment of all obligations. It is 



Thought and Thought Culture 205 

highly desirable that the habit of accumulating and 
classifying thought-material should be begun early in 
life, and that people who intend to become thinkers in 
the high sense of the term should have right ideas 
about accumulating knowledge. 

There is really no such thing as doing the best 
mental work in haste. Every mind has its own par- 
ticular way of thinking, and cannot be 
quickened, though it may be hindered. 
Time must be given for the reaction of knowledge 
upon the mind and for interlacing the filaments of new 
thought with that which is already in the mind. In 
other words, the material must not only be classified 
and organised in the mind, but it must have time to 
unite with the knowledge already accumulated; that 
is, it must become a part of the thinker's intellectual 
life. 

Then the senses are all alert. The memory is keen. 
The fresh young mind is not usually burdened with the 
responsibility of earning a livelihood or of meeting the 
problems of daily life. At this age there should be 
established a habit of running a thought down. When 
a thought comes before the mind, it should be wisely 
and carefully noted in its varied relationships and each 
line of relationship followed to the utmost limit that 
time and present power will allow. From the early 
cultivation of this habit, coupled with an earnest de- 
sire to recognise conditions as they are, one may gain 
that breadth of sympathy and broad human interest 



2o6 up Through Childhood 

which makes him a companion so much sought and so 
greatly desired. 

Reading is one of the most fruitful means of accumu- 
lating material. It is valuable both for the knowledge 
Accumula- ^^ gives directly and for the thought which 
tion of it suggests. With most people, however, it 

Material. -^ ^ good thing overdone. It has so long 
been considered a virtue to read and to read widely that 
it has induced a type of mental indigestion subversive 
of sound scholarship and true character. I believe that 
nearly all intelligent people read too much. It is easier 
to read than to think; easier to adopt the opinion of 
some one else than painfully to work out an opinion of 
one's own. From this practice of overmuch reading 
we may reverently ask to be delivered. 

The first great value that this method offers is that 

which comes from setting one's problem clearly. When 

Talking as he talks with a companion who is a true 

a Method thinker, he will soon find himself compelled 
of Accumu- , . _ 1 ^ . . , 

latinff ^^ ^^^ ^^^ problem definitely, to set the parts 

Material, in due relation to each other, rightly placing 
those which are of greatest and those which are of 
least importance. He will bound the matter with 
question so that it may be sharp-edged, and the whole 
relationship of the parts may stand out definitely and 
clearly like new-cut type. Again, he will find that this 
exercise will compel a clear and definite arrangement 
of his own knowledge. In this process he is likely 
enough to find that some of the things which he felt 



Thought and Thought Culture 207 

were true enough are in no sense worthy, and 
that he must cast aside much of what he before 
accepted without question. Then to these two advant- 
ages may be added the direct accumulation of know- 
ledge. Intelligent people often tell us in their happy 
way things we have never before known, and to 
the mere facts accumulated there is added the charm 
of a delightful personality, which causes the know- 
ledge to remain with us in the stock of our cherished 
treasures. 

Thinking in itself may not be a difficult process, but 
it is one that requires care and it requires a steady 
action of the will, in order that the right ^^he Use 
material may be presented at the right time of the 

and in the right way. After all, the difficult Will, 

thing is to live this life of the will, but if one can have 
the patience to trace out relationships and to gain 
something of the inner essence of the matter to be read, 
there is little doubt that his whole life will be enriched 
thereby. Another step in this process of mental fur- 
nishing, is the grouping of ideas. These should be 
placed under general heads, which recognise real rela- 
tionships, and place the material so that it may be had 
on call, when the mind sees the place for its use. All 
principles, to have the greatest value for our use, must 
have some form of simple and concrete illustration, and 
the thinker who wishes to avail himself of the best 
ideas, will gladly follow out the plan of providing 
concrete illustrations for many of his thoughts. 



2o8 Up Through Childhood 

In all reasoning we must have units of comparison, 
— measures which serve as standards for our mental 
Units of calculations. The unit should be well 
Measure- understood, and the value accurately 
ment. known. This is of the greatest importance 

in the child's life; very often a father's example is the 
highest standard of measurement known to a child. 
The child's estimate of manhood will depend upon his 
idea of a man, and that is often derived from his father, 
teacher, or friend; so with his standards of truth, 
honour, virtue, purity, and courage. Analogy consti- 
tutes one of the forms of thought which is used, per- 
haps more than any other, particularly with those who 
have not learned to reason closely. It is necessary, in 
order to reach a sound conclusion, that the points of 
analogy be real and not assumed, and that they should 
be of the same approximate value. There is no field 
that promises better results for the student than the 
study of analogy. 

It is not enough that one note analogies carefully, 
there must be breadth of thought. If there is no recog- 
nition of the relationships between ideas, there can be 
no real thought. In modern education we have come 
to see the value of a many-sided interest. This, when 
properly established as a habit of life, furnishes breadth 
of view and soundness of conclusion and leads the 
student to the best results. 

The two leading methods of reasoning are induction 
and deduction. In induction we go from the particu- 



Thought and Thought Culture 209 

lar to the general, considering this idea and that and 
the other, and from some particular characteristic in 
each we arrive at a general conclusion. If Methods 
perfect, it involves the examination of every of Reason- 
unit under consideration. In practical life, ^^^' 
much of our induction must necessarily be imperfect. 
For instance, we buy a basket of potatoes and examine 
only a few of those on top. We purchase a loaf of 
bread, noting only such qualities as appeal to the sight. 
In the same way, some select a boarding-house, a horse 
and carriage, or a friend, and are later disappointed in 
the result. The man who, after husking one shock of 
corn, made the declaration that his corn averaged two 
bushels to the shock, was not alone in hasty inductions. 
Generalisations are made frequently from the most 
meagre evidence. 

In deduction we make use of some general truth or 
statement, and by placing the individual under this 

class we are able to declare of it the trait or ^n j *.- 

Deduction. 

characteristic which belongs to the class. 
For example : 

All men are mortal. 
Henry Brown is a man. 
Therefore Henry Brown is mortal. 

The proper study of mankind is man. 

You are a man. 

Therefore, the proper study for you is man. 

X4 



2IO Up Through Childhood 

Venus is a planet. 
Planets are not self-luminous. 
Therefore Venus is not self-luminous. 
In the thought process, I want to place emphasis 
upon practice in thinking. I have no great estimate of 
the value of debating as a means of arriving 

Practice in ^^ ^^.^^h but most strongly do I believe in 
Thinking. ° "^ 

the value of discussion to afford opportunity 

for seeing many sides of the matter. In a sincere dis- 
cussion, sincerely conducted, there is little danger of 
having one's interest so influenced in a topic that the 
feeling will warp the judgment. 

There is another excellent discipline that comes in 
argument, and that is afforded in keeping one's temper. 
Keeoing; James has said that a man consists of soul, 
One's body, and clothes, and in his catalogue of 

Temper. ^j^^ social mes, he includes as a part of a 
man's Self, whatever may be called his, as his land, his 
house, his wife, his children, his political and religious 
opinions. I have known many people who were so de- 
voted to their opinions that the most fatal blow which 
you could administer was to find a vital spot in their 
opinions and thrust in the dagger. 

Cobden says: ** Sit down to write what you have 
Writing as thought, not to think what you shall write." 
a Step But in my experience I have often found 
Th ^ ht writing one of the best steps in the thought 
Process. process. This is well brought out in dictat- 
ing. Even with but a meagre outline one begins to die- 



Thought and Thought Culture 211 

tate, only to find that the mind slowly and accurately 

sets things off in their proper classes, and lays out the 

material with an excellence that he should have striven 

for long had he waited to work it out before beginning 

to write. There is another danger, too, that comes in 

the effort to think. It is the mistake of holding the 

mind to a subject without really thinking. There must 

be a thought process; there must be a comparison of 

definite materials and of the relationships which obtain 

between two or more things duly placed. In his effort 

to be thorough, many a man struggles for an idea till 

the mind wears upon itself, his thought becomes stale 

or petty, and he loses the very element that makes for 

strength and victory. His need is an abundance of 

thought-material, and the habit of fresh and accurate 

classification. 

There are two well recognised methods of thinking, 

rather two different ways. The child and the savage, 

indeed all men think to the greatest extent _, _ 

The Con- 
in the concrete. There is no doubt that the crete and 

highest form of the thought process is ab- the 

stract, and if we are ever to get beyond the 
elementary forms of mental action, we must be able to 
let a sign represent an idea or a group of ideas, and 
press forward to larger acquisitions; but it is just as 
important that in this thought process we should come 
back again and again to the concrete, testing our ab- 
stract acquisitions by means of this concrete method, 
in terms and illustrations. And when we turn our 



212 Up Through Childhood 

thinking to the matter of teaching, we must be on our 
guard continually, not to present abstract statements 
to the young mind, whose daily thinking is in terms 
of the concrete, and in the concrete only. 

Every year adds to my confidence in the intellect as 
a means of obviating one's faults. I mean, of course, 
the faults of the judgment, and not faults of 
a Means of the will; there is no remedy for those but 
Obviating a complete surrender to the practice of 
' righteousness. Many a man has found that 
his financial calculations have not measured up to his 
expectations, and a little careful examination will be 
likely to show that this is habitual with him. He 
finds out by comparing his experiences that he always 
hopes for a little more money than he actually receives, 
and by and by, to use the language of phrenology, he 
discovers that his organ of hope encourages him to ex- 
pect things which he cannot obtain, but by means of 
his intellect he counts off" one-fifth or one-half of his 
estimate, and finds that the figures attained usually 
equal the adjusted estimate. Or again, he knows that 
things never turn out quite so badly as he had expected, 
and finds that many a bridge over which he has grieved 
has been rebuilt before he has been called upon to cross 
the stream. Then he knows that his caution habitu- 
ally predicts danger which never comes to pass, and he 
revises his outlook on life and finds himself so much 
happier and more successful. Now, in the same way, 
one may in good measure learn to govern his temper. 



Thought and Thought Culture 213 

to trust his acquaintances, or to refrain from trusting 
them. What is all this but another way of saying, by 
means of a sturdy will and a sound judgment he will 
lead a vigorous life from day to day, experimenting 
upon things which are uncertain and determining 
always to do the best that he may know. A life of 
this kind is not a life enslaved by evil habits, but it is 
one called to the largest liberty which mind and heart 
and will can grant to the well-endowed Self. 

Stability of character is insured only by the estab- 
lishment of stable and worthy ends. These stable and 
worthy ends are chosen by means of an out- 
look of such breadth and saneness as to put r haracter 
one in the right relation with his fellow 
men, and to subject him to the divine power which 
rules over him. Life in a godly home and among up- 
right men and women goes far to insure worthy aims 
and a stable character. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

M0TIV:^S — KINDS AND VAI^U:^ 

Motive) is used here in the sense of any feeling, 

thought, or belief that excites to action. Thought in 

general is motor in its character, and all 
Definition. .,,.,. , , 

right thinking ought to have action as its 

end. 

The great question is to have people wish to do what 
they ought to do. The problem of the teacher is to 
Importance ^^^^^e the child's attention and active in- 
of Motiva- terest, or to have him move toward the 
**°"* things which the teacher wants him to learn. 

He will then give his own power to the subject and its 
mastery, and will himself open a thousand avenues to 
his nature which otherwise would be closed. It is a 
very slow process to wet a sponge by allowing water to 
drop upon it, but plunge it into a bucket of water and 
the sponge is soon wet. Trying to teach the child 
without his interest and his attention is Thring's ex- 
perience of pumping water into a tea-kettle when the 
lid is on. 

The range of motives is very wide, reaching from the > 

214 



Motives — Kinds and Value 215 

lowest form of physical gratification to the highest 

kind of spiritual interest. In most characters there is a 

continual struggle among different motives 

for the ascendency, but one governing at Kinds of 
^' ^ ^ Motives, 

one time and another prevailing at another. 

One of our hymns asks God to give us not what we 
want but what we need. The task of getting us to 
receive what we really need, is a very difficult one. 
Every well-balanced character has its dominant motive, 
and though its action may not be readily apparent, fre- 
quently the whole character may be read like an open 
book when the dominant motive is understood. In one 
life the feeling of duty stands above all else, and will 
lead a man to sacrifice his own selfish interest and the 
like interests of any of his friends in order to carry out 
his ideal of duty. In another life, physical or social 
gratification is the dominant motive, and everything is 
sacrificed to this end. In still another life, love of 
praise or public approval sways all motives and domi- 
nates conduct. 

1. lyove of Praise. — The love of praise is strong in 
the American character; and, judiciously used, is one 
of the most powerful agencies in securing right con- 
duct; but in many people it becomes unprofitably 
strong and so leads to vain and silly practices, or at 
least to trifling behaviour where great and strong con- 
duct should be found. 

2. Desire for Power. — The desire for power stirs 
every human heart. It is a natural and worthy 



2i6 Up Through Childhood 

motive, provided the power sought is of the right sort, 
and is used for right purposes. 

3. Efficiency. — Closely akin to this is the desire for 
efficiency, indeed this is often a condition of power. In 
a world where there is so much to do and so few who 
are really efficient, this characteristic ought to receive 
large emphasis, and by every means possible there 
should be developed in the mind of the child a strong 
desire to be efficient in the whole range of life's duties 
and requirements. 

4. lyove of Duty. — Passing by the lower motives 
which appeal only to his selfish interests, as a prize, or 
fear of punishment and loss, or even desire for praise, 
we may look to the sense of duty rightly understood as 
one of the strongest incentives in the mind of any well- 
trained child. It is not only " stern daughter of the 
voice of God," but also a strong feeling which finds its 
basis in the child's nature. It is founded on the great 
principle of justice, and grows out of the tremendous 
desire to be exact, definite, and sternly and greatly 
just. 

5. Desire for Excellence. — There is a desire for ex- 
cellence for its own sake which with older children is 
one of the strong and noble motives. This is the feel- 
ing which animated the breast of Longfellow's youth 
in Excelsior, and took him past warning, creed, hope 
of domestic bliss, and that range of human comforts 
which so widely appeals to men, to the far mountain 
heights where the spirit lives untrammelled in the free- 



Motives — Kinds and Value 217 

dom of a life made grander day by day in the unfailing 
struggle for excellence. 

6. Great Purposes. — A great purpose has been born 
in many lives, and has worked out in silence through 
the years a colossal human life which men have gazed 
upon with delight and wonder. To arouse in the mind 
of a child or youth worthy purposes which may become 
supreme in life, is the highest privilege of parent or 
teacher. Not a few are taught to be satisfied with 
the commonplace. Our democratic life is tending all 
the while to level down, and the young men and young 
women of fine endowment and strong aspirations are 
counselled to be prudent, and urged to conform to sur- 
roundings. The whole tendency of our social life is 
the tendency to conform, to be artificial, regular, and 
commonplace. The commonplace does hold things 
noble and good. No one doubts that the highest places 
cannot come to all, but this eternal cry for uniformity 
and for the cheap and easy satisfaction which is coming 
to be preached in our time is a proclamation of death to 
the old heroic spirit, and it subdues and destroys those 
conditions of power which would make for the best life 
of the individual. The rare personal flavour is lost in 
the aping of the common herd. It is not that the 
world is to be governed by the few who are born to be 
noble and strong, but that to every man as his birth- 
right there is the supreme privilege and duty of becom- 
ing the highest and best that his endowment will 
permit, without submitting his own true strong in- 



2i8 up Through Childhood 

stincts to the social law of * ' all alike for appearance' 
sake. ' ' 

7. Activity. — The nature of any healthy child yearns 
for action, and this is one of the strongest motives. In 
the earlier years, it is the motive on which we may de- 
pend with greatest assurance. It is the duty of the 
parent or teacher to guide wisely and to use this funda- 
mental principle of action as a means for the develop- 
ment of the life of the child. His love of society, love 
of liberty, his love of happiness, may all be consulted 
as conditioning relations for the true motives in the at- 
tainment of a given end, but deeper than anything else 
is the inherent desire of the child nature for activity. 
We should see that the end is worth the effort, and if 
the subject be not absolutely distasteful, there will soon 
spring up a warm human interest, and the work will 
distance the most ambitious desire of any teacher who 
depends only on external agencies for interest. 

8. lyove. — lyove for knowledge in general, or love for 
the parent or teacher, and love for the end to be gained, 
are all motives which under right conditions may ap- 
peal worthily to the child's best nature. There is no 
other feeling that is of equal force in the development 
of human character in the world; and yet tremendous 
as is its influence it is only in the highest and best sense 
a satisfactory motive. There are low and unworthy 
loves that are deemed holy, that are but a kind of ex- 
treme selfishness. Many a parent at the child's cradle 
lifts his thought in prayer not higher than the im- 



1 



Motives — Kinds and Value 219 

mediate interests of the little being who commands his 
life. Day by day a mother here may pay her uncon- 
scious idolatry. The love of some parents for their 
children is terrible and strong, but it is so little gov- 
erned by reason and has in mind to so slight a degree 
the highest good of the child, that the motive is 
steadily open to criticism. Many a magnetic, finely 
organised primary teacher loves the little children with 
fearful intensity. They return this feeling, and are 
swept by succeeding waves of pain or pleasure as the 
teacher approves or censures their behaviour. Her 
highest appeal is often a plea for them to obey this or 
that command for love of her. All this is a mistaken 
view of a power which may be made fine, high, and 
noble. Human affection standing on the highest plane 
exalts both the one whose breast it quickens and the 
one who causes the healing activity. 

Any treatment of motives or incentives here must 
necessarily be incomplete, and it seems to me that there 
is little need for any mention of bad incen- Good and 
tives, other than to appeal to them rarely if Bad In- 
ever. The fundamental consideration in ^^" ^^^®* 
choice of motives is to appeal to the child by the high- 
est possible motive which will act in his nature. It is 
not enough that good things should be done, they 
should be done from right motives in order to yield the 
proper results in character. We cannot always deter- 
mine the motive of another, but frequently it is so ap- 
parent that we need have no question as to its being 



2 20 Up Through Childhood 

right or wrong. A good act from a wrong incentive 
may profit a community, but so far as building up the 
character of the doer is concerned, there is little pros- 
pect that he will be better after the deed has been done 
than before. On the contrary, the incentive which 
should develop his character is not there to act, and the 
good deed being done, he is praised for conduct more 
or less deceptive. 

At this point there is need of the greatest discretion 
and charity. Many a life is ruled by a motive not ap- 
The parent on the surface; and though it may act 

Hidden strongly, the more deeply it is hidden the 
Motives. jggg ^j^g character is understood, and very 
often the more severely it is criticised. 

There is a story of Pierre, a cheerful French youth, 
who lived as his fellows, full of joy and gaiety. He 
Illustration lo^S^^ f^^ the time when he should lead to 
of Hidden a simple home the girl his heart had chosen. 
Motive. -g^^^ j^g ^^g stricken with a violent fever; for 
weeks his life hung in the balance. Still youth and 
hope were strong. All through the weary weeks he 
begged for water from the mountain-side where he and 
his playfellows had rambled. The fever was broken. 
After a time, he walked among his friends with a 
pleasant face and a cordial air, but now and then, those 
who watched him closely saw the light of a strong pur- 
pose in his eyes. He said nothing, but when strength 
returned, began to work and to save as never before. 
His friends urged him to renew the ties of love. He met 



Motives — Kinds and Value 221 

all entreaties with silence and a smile. Months slipped 
away, still there was no renewing of the old ties, and 
no effort to find new enjoyment. The years sped away. 
He was an old man; one e^'^ning he called to him the 
village priest and revealed the secret purpose of his life : 
it was to provide his native town with an abundance of 
pure, fresh water. The suffering which the early spell 
of fever had burned into his brain resulted in the for- 
mation of a purpose, which proved to be his life-long 
aim. Early and late he had toiled so that none should 
suffer as he had done. Work was begun at once, and 
before long, over hill and valley, from a mountain lake 
was led the crystal stream which came to his native 
town with healing, and graciously wrought out in its 
ministry the sacred purpose formed in the mind of a 
boy fifty years before. 

All this business of judging and estimating other 
people's motives, particularly in youth and adult life, 
is a difficult and questionable proceeding. Thing-s 
The thing to be sought is an increasing Worth 
activity on the part of the child, growing While, 
out of that state of mind which welcomes the truth. 
If a child can feel that his work is worth while, he is 
entirely willing to spend effort to gain knowledge. He 
must realise the benefit to be derived in the end, and 
the good to be accomplished by his effort. When we 
are planning his course of action, he must see or feel 
the relationship of his effort to the definite end which 
we propose. The teacher's course is to study the mind 



222 Up Through Childhood 

of each child, to take hold upon the interests he has, 
and to plan for such an increase of knowledge and ex- 
perience as will give him new interests. The great 
thing is to keep before his mind continually the idea 
which it is worth his while to establish, and if at first 
he fails to incorporate it, as desired, he will, by trying 
again, succeed, and with each new success life will be- 
come to him an increasingly rich, beautiful, and joyful 
experience. 

The human mind has no vacuum. If you do not fill 
it with good ideas and impulses, it will gather to itself 
The those that are unworthy. The fundamental 

Expulsive law of life is to keep the mind so filled with 
of the worthy thoughts and so occupied with 

Higher wholesome activities that there may be 
Affection, neither place nor desire for things that are 
unwholesome or unworthy. With love as a motive, it 
may drive out all other and lower feelings, and make 
a bright and beautiful attainment. Hate and fear as 
motives are a constant menace, and lead to one end — 
death. The character which is dominated by either of 
these elements has already lost its fineness, and will in 
the end be only a force for evil. 

Exercise and nourishment are the conditions of life 

^ ,,. ^. and growth, and the best means of cultivat- 
Cultivation ^ 

of the ing right motives are necessarily those which 

Rig^t will give them nourishment and impel to 

wholesome exercise. To make a child 

a strong student, we must first rouse his interest, and 



Motives — Kinds and Value 223 

bring into the range of his native interest the knowledge 
we wish him to acquire. 

The work must have in itself a certain definite value, 
or beyond the work there must lie real profit from its 
accomplishment. Whenever we are able to put the 
work and the end in such relation that the child will 
desire the end, the work will take care of itself. In a 
strong, kindly, and pleasant way, keep the idea before 
the child's mind and if it be an idea worth while and 
suited to his age and development, it wall grow larger 
and larger in his range of mental vision until it be- 
comes the dominant force of his active life. It is true 
that regularity will favour the establishment of such 
habits of thought and action as will lead to the end we 
have in view, and the end we offer must be large and 
worthy. Better than all other means in the cultivation 
of right motives is a genial and inspiring home life, 
and a strong, kind, hopeful school life. The soul of 
the teacher must touch the soul of the child, and by 
that magnetic contact of life with life, which is known 
but not understood, results can be obtained which, in 
their wide relations and accumulating effects, surpass 
the wonders of old. There is nothing greater than that 
expansion and kindly growth which bears witness to 
the continual right unfolding of the human soul. It is 
hard to tell how great a change would be wrought in 
the world if all men were trying to do things that are 
really worth while. The Germans have a motto, "The 
good is a great enemy of the best. ' ' A great number 



224 Up Through Childhood 

of things that are comparatively harmless would cease 
to be done, if men in general were thoroughly imbued 
with the idea of doing only the things that are best 
worth while. This living of a miserable commonplace 
life without aspiration or exaltation, is the curse of this 
time. It is one of the fruits of a selfish and worldly 
democracy, which, instead of seeking the highest ex- 
cellence, seeks only that degree of attainment which 
will pass without severe censure. 

But the test after all is not so much the absolute 
value of any particular duty or course of action, as 

^, _ , the end toward which it points. From this 
The Test. ^ 

standpoint, the logical climax of any course 
of action is of supreme importance. When one is 
planning and making his life plan or modifying it, as 
he must from month to month, or from year to year, he 
may well ask himself: "If I follow out to its legitimate 
end the course I have taken, where will it lead me? 
Can I continue to violate the laws of health without 
insuring an early death? Can I have unwholesome 
thoughts without the outbreak of a contagion ? Can I 
hate my neighbour without hate becoming regnant in 
my life ? ' ' The questions on the logical climax become 
a touchstone of the sound character, and may easily 
settle for a young man a great many vexed questions. 
J-, The more completely the life is dominated 

Place for by the intellect, the less we are likely to ap- 
Emotion. prove the emotions. But emotion has justly 
a great place in human character. It has often the 



Motives — Kinds and Value 225 

power of summoning the entire strength of the indi- 
vidual to accompHsh a given end. As a rule, great 
natures love much and sorrow much. Those who have 
tasted every cup of suffering and still have failed not 
have been the ones who have so deeply blessed their 
kind. Kmotion accomplishes remarkable things; yet 
along with the good it accomplishes, there is much 
spending of energy, and in many cases such a complete 
wasting of one's power that he is less useful than his 
endowment warrants. If it is a noble and beautiful 
emotion that dominates, it makes him the sport of the 
changing winds of circumstance. If he loves art until 
it has become a passion, all that is rude, coarse, and 
inartistic becomes a source of ever-present irritation. 
If he has gone so far toward the ideal as to be out of 
sympathy with the real, he can find no point of contact 
for helpful service to his kind. Sometimes he is made 
the painful subject for the practices of careless or de- 
signing people. But these forms are unusual and rap- 
idly tend to right themselves. We live in a wholesome 
world, and all the great natural forces tend toward the 
establishment of harmony. The greatest harm comes 
to him who indulges in that kind of emotional dissipa- 
tion which so many people seem to welcome as a means 
of acknowledgment and sometimes even of righteous- 
ness. There sweep over them frequent storms of emo- 
tion; they love, hope, fear, and enjoy like a tempest. 
Not a few people look with great favour upon periods 
of special exaltation, whether it be social or religious; 

IS 



2 26 Up Through Childhood 

but after the party, they are so completely spent as to 
live like beasts or devils; or after the protracted meet- 
ing, so hateful as to raise the question whether they 
have religion at all. There can be no doubt that the 
highest social enjoyment must be taken in moderation; 
and that the highest religious life usually comes as the 
still small voice, rather than as the mountain tempest. 
There are times when whole communities need to be 
mightily stirred, and anything which may deeply rouse 
to the best life should be heartily welcomed. There 
are times when the individual heart needs to be hum- 
bled and broken, and a storm of feeling may then be the 
highest grace; but I cannot welcome the hot-house meth- 
ods that are so often adopted in dealing with young and 
wholesome natures. The excitement is untrue, unnat- 
ural, and unwholesome, and after it is over the children 
find themselves completely worn out with the tremen- 
dous expenditure of energy; the body and the mind are 
left in a state of pitiable weakness. A season of depres- 
sion follows, and the whole life touches a lower level, 
where many forms of temptation present themselves, 
and where vigorous thought and action are impossible. 
There must be a close and recognised relation be- 
tween the effort made and the end to be gained. No 
Relation matter in religion is more important than 

between ^-^^^^ ^^^^ whenever the child can be brought 
Effort and . . . , . ^ 

Accom- to recognise this relationship he is far on the 

plishment. road toward the willing practice of excel- 
lence. A complete surrender to one's highest ideal 



Motives — Kinds and Value 227 

makes right living a pleasure, and instead of the long 
hard struggle which characterises so many lives, there 
come the supreme joy and tangible victory because the 
surrender to righteousness has been complete. This 
ideal character often combines a number of the highest 
and best human motives, and when there is a complete 
surrender to it, it is possible for the young, and par- 
ticularly those in the period of adolescence, to win a 
victory altogether beyond that gained by men in later 
life, when they have unconsciously substituted the 
commonplace for the great ideal, when life has lost its 
purposeful edge, and they are living on a threadbare 
past resolve, rather than on a new, strong, close- woven 
present, wherein the thrilling tissues of daily life are 
shot through with the vital threads of the divine. 



CHAPTER XIX 

HABIT — GKNKRAI, I^AWS 

It is now generally accepted that habit has a physi- 
cal basis, and that it is dependent upon molecular 
changes in the brain, or, to speak rather 
of Habit crudely, upon brain paths through which 
nervous force makes its escape in time of 
neural excitation. These paths have been likened to 
the channels which a little stream of water cuts for it- 
self as it falls upon a pile of sand. To state the same 
thought in another figure, just as a coat settles into 
wrinkles to fit the peculiar form of the wearer and will 
not easily modify itself to another form, so the mind 
takes a certain form of nervous discharge, or manifests 
a special form of neural activity. Again, it may be il- 
lustrated by a paper which, folded in a particular place, 
ever after tends to fold in the same place. 

The practical value of habit is: 
Practical ^- ^^^t it simplifies movements. 

Value of 2. That it makes them accurate. 

Habit. ^^ ^^^^ .^ diminishes fatigue. 

Man has a tendency to do many things, and yet for 
each particular class of duties his nerve centres must be 

228 



Habit — General Laws 229 

trained, and practice in performing any class of actions 
must result in the formation of habit. Practice, in the 
end, makes perfect. It enables one to cut across 
corners and meet the various requirements with the 
fewest movements and the least amount of nervous 
force possible to one with his organisation. By prac- 
tice he comes to understand himself and the amount of 
energy necessary to reach a given result. As, for in- 
stance, that he must, with his tennis racket, strike the 
ball in serving j ust so hard in order that it may fall in 
the right place. This practice tends to make his move- 
ments accurate. The saving of unnecessary move- 
ments and the advantage of having these movements 
accurate and unarrested diminish fatigue. Professor 
James calls habit the '* fly-wheel of society," and it 
does indeed keep men in their established walks of life. 
Without it, there would be not only loss of time but 
continuous dissension, uncertainty, and waste of effort. 
Its value in the school is very great, and I am sure one 
will think at once of simplicity and accuracy of move- 
ment and economy of efibrt as qualities directly applica- 
ble in the life of the student. The habit of attendance 
at Sunday-school and church, the habit of reverence 
and propriety of behaviour are desirable, and ma}^ be 
readily established when conditions are at all favour- 
able. Habit covers modes of action and states of 
feeling; many persons who are usually ill have so es- 
tablished the habit that they really seem to enjoy poor 
health. Others have established a complaining and 



230 Up Through Childhood 

fault-finding habit, until such behaviour affords them 
a certain dreary satisfaction. Habit sets early in life, 
and with a little foresight can be established in almost 
any direction. Its value in moral training is at once 
evident. 

Habit is physical, intellectual, and moral. Its 
wholesome effect in the physical may include the right 
posture of body, right habits of taste and 
H b^r^ eating, the habit of discipline of the body 
and of avoiding all things which are known 
as hurtful. The benefit of careful and accurate habits 
of physical action can scarcely be overrated, and the 
good effects of these tend to permeate all the activities 
of life. 

To observe closely, think clearly and quickly, to re- 
member accurately and readily the things within the 

range of one's acquaintance and experience. 
Mental , , r • ■, 

Habits ^ ^^ state accurately, are types of intel- 
lectual habits, and such types as contribute 
to the highest excellence. 

One of the signs of generous mental furnishing is 
found in the willingness to accept the work of those 

who are experts, in lines where we are be- 
Moral 
Habits. ginners. This disposition must be exercised 

with some care, specially that we may choose 

only those who are experts, to deliver opinions for us. 

But there is a danger that comes to those who have 

this generous mental furnishing, even more than 

others. Having examined the subject once in a life- 



Habit — General Laws 231 

time carefully, there is a general disposition to regard 
the matter as settled for all time, and a corresponding 
unwillingness to receive new light on the question. 
This is well illustrated by a story that comes to us 
from the Academy of Sciences in France. 

In March, 1878, one of the French savants exhibited 
a phonograph at the meeting of the Academy, and ex- 
plained its workings. A member of the Academy, 
who was inhospitable to these ideas, rushed up to the 
scientist and berated him soundly for his attempt to 
deceive the members of that learned body by the trick 
of ventriloquism, and so firmly was he fixed in this 
view that six months later he published a magazine 
article denouncing in unmeasured terms the phono- 
graph and its exhibitor. Of a much more important 
character is an entry in the private journal of an Eng- 
lishman who, about 1760, was visiting one of the in- 
sane asylums in France. As he was passing through 
one of the wards a patient was trying by every means 
in his power to attract the visitor's attention. The 
physician said: " O give no attention to him, he has 
been worrying the life out of the Bishop of Paris for 
the last year, trying to get his attention to an invention 
which he has for making vessels go against the wind 
by means of steam raised from water. ' ' Sad enough it 
is, that at that time the intellectual habits bound men 
so strongly that they could not free themselves. But 
it is quite as likely that future generations will look 
back upon our time of boasted intelligence, and point 



232 Up Through Childhood 

out errors among us which in their character are quite 

as humiHating, and in effect, just as pathetic. 

It is indeed true that every child must pass through 

the general process of acquisition, and must make his 

own, the common knowledge of the race; 

_ , and that he is never able to begin where his 

Enslaves. ° 

ancestors left off. When he has reached 
the point where he is thoroughly conversant with the 
knowledge of the past, he settles down to hard and fast 
opinions on questions of common knowledge, and with 
increase in age becomes more and more unwilling to 
receive new ideas and to consider new statements. 

Barnum's great show was nearing its destination at 
an Ontario town one night, when suddenly the train 
was wrecked. Jumbo, the great elephant, was killed; 
and as the cars were heaped one upon another many 
of the cages were injured. That of the royal Bengal 
tiger was sadly broken. The huge beast crawled care- 
fully out from his cage, looked about him, stretching 
his limbs as if to enjoy the new-found liberty, and 
then, overcome with fear at the responsibility of his 
new powers and bound by the habits of his old cap- 
tivity, this monster, that might have made the animals 
of the Asiatic jungle flee and tremble, crawled in fear 
back into his cage and waited until the keeper closed 
him in and set the cage aside. The animals of the 
menagerie are not the only ones bound by chains too 
strong to be broken, and these chains are often those 
of the mind rather than those of the body. 



Habit — General Laws 2^^ 

There is an Oriental story of a prisoner who was 
sentenced to solitary confinement for life. It was in 
his young manhood, and his heart was breaking as he 
bade his friends farewell and was borne to his living 
tomb. Winter changed to spring, summer to autumn, 
and the round of the years followed each other with 
uncounted haste, until the man was old and broken. 
A new ruler came to the throne, and signalised his 
ascension to power by liberating all those who had 
been in prison more than ten years. The old man 
came blinking out into the joyous light of day. He 
was led to his native town, and turned here and there 
in the old streets which his foot had pressed in boy- 
hood. The house in which he had dwelt was gone; 
wife and children had sunk into the grave. The man 
was alone in the world that had grown beyond him. 
Overcome with grief at the new sorrow that had fallen 
upon him, he rushed into the presence of his ruler and 
begged him that he might again be imprisoned, for 
so he could find his only happiness. 

It seems to me quite possible to accustom one's self 
so thoroughly to perform the duties of life, promptly 
and pleasantly, that there may be but little demand 
upon the purpose and the will for anything outside of 
the larger and more exacting questions which arise in 
one's daily experience. Why should one continually be 
questioning whether he should be true or generous? 
Why should he hesitate and make it a matter of de- 
cision each time he is to perform a gentlemanly act ? 



234 Up Through Childhood 

Cannot all these things be so thoroughly established in 
childhood that they may be made almost instinctive ? 
Habit includes action, thought, and feeling, and when 
rightly established may be made a source of continual 
uplifting. In business life, the habit of success is one 
of the great factors in winning just that for which we 
seek most earnestly. The importance of succeeding in 
what is worth doing can scarcely be overrated. It is 
a sad mistake to keep anyone continually striving in a 
field where he cannot hope to gain success. To keep 
a boy in a class, where his best efforts can be rewarded 
only by failure from the point of view of his mates, or 
in the family to keep a child occupied with things 
which he can never do well, is little less than criminal. 
No wonder that such a one early questions the value of 
what he is undertaking, and at last is doubtful whether 
life is worth living. 

We are coming to recognise more and more the whole 
range of mental activities which lie beyond the con- 
The Sub- scious, and yet play so large a part in our 
Conscious mental life. For convenience, I shall here 
call that region the sub-conscious field. 
Many a thing forgotten is not wholly lost, but is called 
from the hazy realm to which it has escaped, the mo- 
ment we take hold of an idea closely related to it. For 
example, you forget the name of the person whom you 
once knew well; you see the common friend with 
whom you have met in former days, and at once the 
forgotten name comes to you. Or instead, you call to 



Habit — General Laws 235 

mind something associated with the place where you 
met the person, running over the matter till you say, 
*' Yes, his name begins with M, and the next letter is 
e ! " lyittle by little you are lifting into the realm of 
consciousness the forgotten name, until all at once it 
bursts fully recognised into the mind. 

In our earlier lessons, we have discussed conscious- 
ness and memory, and have spoken of forgetting as if 
it were an art. The forgotten fact is not, Nothing 

however, wholly lost, but sinks into sub- ^® ^^^^ 

Wholly 
consciousness, from which it may be called j^^g^ ^^^^ 

at any instant by taking hold upon ideas the Mind, 
closely related thereto. The following story gives both 
lesson and warning. 

Some years ago, a man, living in a Southern city, 
followed out for two or three years a life of sin. He 
went to the North, was converted, and began a strong 
and virtuous life. After four years of the new life, he 
returned to his Southern home to visit his mother. 
He reached a city twenty miles from his destination, 
where he had to wait for a connecting train. This had 
been the place of his evil life. At once, the old de- 
sires and appetites came with tremendous force upon 
him. All the noble living of the last four years, all 
the prayers, aspirations, and resolutions were forgot- 
ten, and he gave himself to a round of dissipation 
which lasted until he was exhausted. The explana- 
tion is, that these thoughts and associations had 
been buried in the sub-conscious field until a group of 



236 Up Through Childhood 

associated ideas was called strongly to his mind by the 
scenes of his early experiences. This was more than 
he could resist. 

The importance of guarding the young man against 
evil impressions is directly enforced by this doctrine of 

the sub-conscious field. Kvery boy, as well 
Young: ^^ every girl, should be shielded from the 

words and sights of vice. All reasonable 
curiosity of the growing child, with reference to the 
great laws of his being, should be satisfied early, in 
clean language and by right methods, and through the 
agency of a loving parent or friend, rather than by 
means of information stealthily furnished by ignorant 
servants or by evil companions. 

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
But seen too oft, famihar with her face. 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 

POPK. 

But the field of this activity is not less strong for 
righteousness. In early life there may be stored such 
visions of beauty and comfort, by a living acquaintance 
with nature, as to make these memories charming and 
fruitful through the darker experiences of age. The 
mind may be stored with noble sentiments, including 
the best that has been said or thought in the ages gone, 
with high ideals and refined expressions, making all 
the life richer and truer, and these, at the need of the 
hour, will come back with increasing blessing. 



Habit — General Laws 237 

Habit Forming 

A large measure of our time and energy in life is 
spent in reformation, but here or there a great teacher 
or philanthropist proposes to substitute for- p ,. . 
mation for reformation. I take it that the 
most hopeful sign of these times is to be found in the 
large attention given to right training and the establish- 
ment of right habits. No teacher who looks toward 
the formation of character can think lightly of this im- 
portant field of activity. All right habits are formed 
under the condition of quick, active, and successful 
efforts. 

It is well to provide against temptation, but there is 
something higher than overcoming evil habits. It is 
found in establishing good ones; the life must be so 
full of things that are worth doing, that the habit of do- 
ing the best may become a permanent mode of thought 
and action. This will include physical habits, mental 
habits, and moral habits. Each of these will be 
greatly helped by the further determination and prac- 
tice of keeping ourselves up to the best. It is in the 
moment when we sink low, when the moral life is in 
abeyance, when the nervous energy is overcome, that 
we do the unworthy things. But in the hour of 
strength we live the life of victory, and we feel worthy 
when we behave ourselves worthily. There is to be no 
nursing of unholy memories, no culture of the thoughts 
that will yield a harvest of sin. 



238 Up Through Childhood 

For the formation of a new habit, it is desirable: 

1. To put all the energy possible into the action 
which you wish to make habitual. If it deals with the 
body, energise the muscles which you wish to make 
active, and call yourself again and again not only to 
action, but to the thought of the action. I^et the ideal 
of that which you wish to become, or what you wish 
to do, be stamped so thoroughly on the consciousness 
that it will spring to the mind in the first waking 
moment, and serve as a controlling force even in that 
partly conscious state which lies within the realm of 
sleep. 

2. You will keep away from those surroundings 
which will act against the establishment of the desired 
habit. In short, avoid temptation. The tremendous 
pull of those ideas which may lie in the sub-conscious 
field must not be allowed to act against a habit to be 
formed. It is often a matter of the highest courage to 
run away from dangerous surroundings or ideas. Only 
those who have felt the power of a strong temptation 
can fully realise the effort that is necessary to insure 
victory. And, as a matter of mental hygiene, it is 
better to avoid temptation, than to meet it with the 
risk of failure. 

3. Kvery time there is an opportunity, repeat the 
action until it becomes a habit. 

4. Allow no exception to occur while the habit is in 
the critical stage of formation. For example, if you 
have resolved to form the habit of early rising, do not 



Habit — General Laws 239 

permit yourself to enjoy the luxury of lying in bed for 
even a little quarter of an hour beyond the time which 
you have assigned. And not only must you insist with 
yourself upon this once, but again and again, until the 
habit of early rising is fully established. 

5. This is mightily helped by a complete surrender 
of the mind to do all that is necessary; if there is the 
least hesitation or doubting, or the least calculation to 
determine whether the result is worth the cost, the 
outcome of all the effort is doubtful. A complete sur- 
render to the ideas which you wish to establish, means 
victory. 

One of the most important duties that parents have 
to perform is that of securing in their children the es- 
tablishment of right personal habits. It is 

just as easy for a child to establish those Personal 
' , -^ . Habits, 

habits of cleanliness, neatness, and winning 

behaviour, which will make him personally attractive, 
as to establish those habits which will make him un- 
consciously repulsive to his fellows. Personal habits 
are for the most part formed before the age of twenty, 
and parents should insist upon the formation of right 
habits in items of toilet — such as brushing the clothes, 
selecting apparel, and the whole round of delicate at- 
tentions necessary to make one's self presentable for 
appearance in cultivated society. One of the most im- 
portant services a parent can render to a child is to 
teach him to buy his own clothes. In not a few in- 
stances, young men and young women have been 



240 Up Through Childhood 

brought up to depend so entirely upon their parents 
that, when they have reached maturity, they find them- 
selves utterly unprepared to make proper selections. 

Business habits settle themselves from twenty to 
thirty, and a man w^ho in these years has acquired a 

slow method of doing his work, is in danger 
Habits ^^ continuing that method to the end of his 

life. The young minister begins to take 
upon himself the tone and mannerisms of the pulpit. 
The young physician adopts an attitude of mind and a 
carriage of body in harmony with his profession. The 
fact that any business will stamp its characteristics 
upon the worker is a satisfactory explanation of the 
difficulty which most men find in taking up a new 
business late in life. For, not only the body must be 
educated for the new occupation, but the whole range 
of natural powers. There are new calls for judgment, 
new things to be remembered, and on every side calls 
by the hundred, different from those to which the 
worker has been accustomed. Since religion should 
consist in life rather than in ceremonies, the formation 
of habits should, in some directions, be wisely encour- 
aged, and, in others, strongly resisted. In the latter 
class fall those habits which tend to deprive the higher 
life of all the juices and fineness of the spiritual na- 
ture. Men who take part in conference meetings, 
without feeling, and without guarding their thought, 
will in time come to pray the same prayer and make 
the same speech over and over again. And many of 



Habit — General Laws 241 

those who object to a written prayer, have not the 
slightest hesitation in using the same stereotyped form 
which they have used for twenty years. The only 
protection against this strong tendency to habit forma- 
tion is to be found in growth of the mind and the 
grace of the heart. I would not fail to impress the im- 
portance of the experimental life. However excellent 
the habits, unless character is sustained by a strong 
purposeful edge of choice and activity, there cannot be 
strong and true growth in the best things. 

J6 



CHAPTER XX 

TRAINING TH:^ WII<I, 

** IrrejsoIvUTion is a fatal habit; it is not vicious in 

itself, but it leads to vice, creeping upon its victims 

with a fatal facility, the penalty of which 

Irresolu- many a fine heart has paid on the scaffold. 
tion. 

The idler, the spendthrift, the epicure, and 

the drunkard are among its victims. Perhaps in the 
last its effect appears in the most hideous form. He 
knows that the goblet he is about to drain is poison, 
yet he swallows it. He knows — for the example of 
thousands has painted it in glaring colours — that it will 
deaden all his faculties, take the strength from his 
heart, oppress him with disease, and hurry his progress 
to a dishonoured grave, yet he drains it. How beau- 
tiful, on the contrary, is the power of resolution, en- 
abling the one who possesses it to pass through perils 
and dangers, trials and temptations! " 

Will has its foundation in the nervous system, and it 

is governed by causes operative to a great 

The Will, degree below the stream of consciousness, or, 

as one may say, in the sub-conscious region. 

Moved by these hidden springs of action, we some- 

242 



Training the Will 243 

times do things that astonish ourselves as much as other 
people. Certain it is that we are modified by the past ex- 
periences of ourselves and our ancestors. The will lies 
very near to feeling, and it is with difficulty that we dis- 
tinguish it from feeling. For in all consideration of the 
will we should remember that thought is essentially 
motor, and that from the mere fact of holding a certain 
idea before the mind, that idea will gradually enlarge 
and take stronger hold until it dominates thought and 
determines action. Strictly speaking, the immediate 
effect of our will is seen in outward bodily movements. 

Will involves primarily decision, and secondarily, as 
its outward sign, action. James gives five chief types 
of decision: 

First type, the reasonable. Here the arguments 
for and against a given course seem slowly and steadily 
and wisely to settle themselves in the mind 
and to have a clear balance in favour of one Decision 
alternative, which we then adopt. Until 
we come to the point of decision we feel that the evi- 
dence is not all in, and realise that decision will 
be unwise until we have all the light possible on the 
subject. Reasons seem to flow in upon our minds, 
and we decide. The important thing here is a right 
conception of the problem to be solved. Man is reason- 
able when his stock of stable and worthy ends so de- 
termines his course that he is not willing to adopt a 
course of action that will violate any one of these 
ends. 



244 Up Through Childhood 

Second type. In this we allow ourselves to drift 
quietly in any direction until at last the decision is 
made from without. 

Third type. Here decision also seems to be acci- 
dental, but comes from within. Many of the great men 
of history have had this type of decision. They have 
paused until the inner forces of their nature gather 
themselves for action, and finding that they can no 
longer stand the pent-up energy, there is a tumultuous 
turn of thoughts and feeling, and the decision is fixed. 
Witness Luther, Napoleon, and Hannibal. 

Fourth type. This comes from a peculiar inward 
change by which we suddenly pass from the easy and 
careless to the sober and strenuous mood. The whole 
scale of our values, motives, and impulses has under- 
gone a change. Needs no longer seem as before. 
This is the type of will which includes those changes 
of heart and awakening of conscience of which we 
wisely make so much in religious experiences. By 
force of the inward power, we rise to a higher 
level. 

Fifth type. The fifth type is one in which, the evi- 
dence being all in, we come to a decision by inward 
effort and a heave of the will. These are the decisions 
which men remember longest, because of the effort 
which it seems to cost to make them. With a desire 
for open-mindedness, reasonable behaviour and delib- 
erative action ought to be nourished. Deliberation not 
only requires calmness, and reasonable delay of de- 



Training the Will 245 

cision, but it requires a wide range of knowledge and 
the understanding of several ways by which we may 
arrive at the desired end. Ideas must precede decision. 

** If an intelligent physician has an idea of twenty- 
five methods of treating rheumatism, he may vary his 
treatment accordingly, and may succeed where a less 
skilled doctor would fail. If a business man has a 
dozen ideas to fit a given emergency, he may act in 
any of these directions; if he has but one idea, he can 
act in but one direction. Ideas must precede to open a 
path for intelligent action." — HalIvKCK. 

Any plan for will- training which does not include 
the thought of apprenticeship in right living must in 
its nature prove a failure. First a thought, Annrentice- 
then a deed, then a habit. There has been ship in 

in educational circles many a protest against Right 

moral teaching and against all plans for 
practice in righteousness, but there must be definite 
teaching of moral principles and purposeful practice of 
moral actions, otherwise we can never hope for strong 
character. 

How can you reach the will of a child ? You can 

storm the will, you may even break it; but the wisest 

course is to win the will, and that end is „ , 

' How to 

reached through the feelings. ''There must Reach a 
be an appeal to right feeling through the Child's 
will, and then the will will put forth right 
feeling in the deed, and you have a right deed." The 
will is reached through the feelings of the child, and 



246 Up Through Childhood 

feeling is always responsive to the right presentation of 
truth. This furnishes the basis for our instruction in 
religious things. As Dr. White puts it: ''The feel- 
ings solicit the will, and the will determines conduct." 
Thought is motor, and knowledge provokes thought. 
Then, with a habit of immediate and right action from 
right thought, we may expect a deed in harmony with 
moral law. Our modern life is to be censured for the 
great drain it makes upon emotion. Kvery time we hear 
a fine concert or an eloquent oration or a strong sermon, 
we have need to do something a little better than the 
things we are accustomed to do. It is well to train for 
every action, but it is highly important to train to ac- 
tion. A battalion of fine impulses, allowed to evapor- 
ate, works for harm in the life of any child. We have 
need to do day by day many unpleasant things, and 
this willingness to perform cheerfully the things we 
dislike, results in such an attitude of mind and such a 
temper for victory that the will can bid defiance to evil 
in the hour of temptation. But there is something 
more than a making of choices. Many a time the 
making of a choice is rendered difiicult because there is 
so much involved that we cannot readily decide upon 
the wisest course of action. When one has made a 
mistake in his decision, he needs to have the grace and 
the nobleness to admit it, and to go back to his place 
willingly. I^ife cannot always be governed by intelli- 
gence. At a thousand turns we lay aside the intellect 
and come to our decision by feeling or by will. We 



Training the Will 247 

have need to think out carefully the minor questions 
that decide the major question and pass on to action or 
to a new question for choice. 

If the will is ever to be a large force in character, as 
we have a right to expect, it must be trained rather 
than broken. The first condition in training Trained 
the will is good example. More than any Not 

precepts, more even than the compulsory Broken, 
action, the constant example of one who bears a mag- 
netic personality will determine action, and voluntary 
action is rightly to be regarded as the manifestation of 
will. After example has been presented and all right 
instruction given, there is nothing that can be of 
greater value than the constant action of the will. The 
discipline is not merely of the judgment, but of prac- 
tice, in adopting the type of decision characterised by 
reasonableness, and, if necessary, even that type which 
requires effort. A little gratuitous exercise of the will 
in the work of every day becomes in time one of the 
richest investments for character. If we do things — 
unpleasant things — not only when we must, but fre- 
quently because we may, the habit of prompt decision 
and vigorous action will in time be established, and 
there will be no hesitation about making choices be- 
cause they may impose hardships. The making of 
right choices, the maintenance of noble aims and stable 
desires, will go far toward establishing that attitude of 
mind which uniformly results in right decision. 

Elsewhere we have discussed the subject of interest, 



248 Up Through Childhood 

and with full recognition of the warm personal char- 
acter of that power, we may recognise that 
Wilful- . . _ , . , , ,. 

jjggg^ It IS one of the strongest agents m holdmg 

before the mind any given idea until that 
becomes dominant and so leads to action. Stubborn- 
ness is no indication of a right will; it is the indication 
of an untrained will, and probably the sign of a will 
which has taken its present form from frequent nag- 
ging, which is one of the worst forms by which men 
attempt to correct evils. 

Uses of the Will 

1. To provide for one's own development. There 
never was a time when there were so many conditions 

and opportunities favourable to self-develop- 
th^^W'ii ^^^t, and yet there probably never was a 

time when human interests conflicted more, 
and when the forces of society tended more strongly 
to restrict one's development. The world is to a de- 
gree becoming crowded; new lines of activity are 
harder to find. Kach young man who has to make his 
place in the world is compelled to do it by means of 
edging and crowding and waiting and stepping forward 
into a vacant place until his position is fully assured. 

2. To preserve one's individuality. Though sur- 
rounded by people of the best sense and the most fav- 
ourable disposition, we are continually narrowed and 
restricted and induced little by little to conform to 
things around us. The opinions of others restrict the 



Training the Will 249 

free play of our thought. L^ike a mountain wind that 
is never weary, or the sea that dashes forever on the 
shore, the wave of public opinion is beating upon us 
and tends to roll in and submerge our individual plans, 
purposes, and ideas. It takes a heroic will for a man 
to keep the richest and best that is in him and rise 
above the commonplace. To live a life with a purpose- 
ful edge, trying always to do the things that need to be 
done, and avoiding the things that ought not to be 
done, requires a diligence which never sleeps and a 
will that reacts like tempered steel. 

3. To sustain one in the hour of discouragement. 
All success must be conquered. The keener the 
struggle, the more difficult victory becomes. In the 
lone hour, when the spirit has to believe in itself, when 
it is striving almost hope against hope for one supreme 
thing to be done, then for the will to stand fast, even 
amid continual depression, is to hold high faith which 
will ultimately bring success. 

lyCt the child work for itself. The habit of depend- 
ing upon itself and trying new conditions, meeting 

emergencies, and deciding questions con- 

„ Mi • •. . , . . . . Training 

tmually, will give it vigour and initiative, ^j^^ will 

If the parent can reason with the child and 

help him to discover the things that need to be done, 

and then set forth the reasons for and against a given 

course of action, the child is quite likely to decide in 

the right way. But he must have practice in making 

choices. He should be taught to plan the disposition 



250 Up Through Childhood 

of his own time, to work out for himsell little schemes 
for enjoyment, and to enter upon various lines of ac- 
tivity with which he will remain until success or defeat 
is assured. Let him experience both the joys of success 
and the penalties of failure. The only point to guard 
is that he may not suffer too severely for failure caused 
by his own ignorance or mistakes. 

Ours is a great country. We have a government 
which allows a wide range of activities. It has been 
said that in European countries the citizens 
and Will ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ things which they have permis- 
sion to do. In the United States they do 
everything that is not forbidden, and some things that 
are forbidden. If the best and highest type of govern- 
ment is to obtain among us, our citizens must have so 
much personal worth and such independence of char- 
acter that they will obey law, and choose only the 
right. 

Business life affords ample scope for the cultivation 
of this power. In these days of keen competition, busi- 
ness success is often the result of unfailing 
and Will Struggle. Sometimes it is less a matter of 
resources than of that courage of spirit 
which enables one in a difiScult contest to hold out 
longest. The young man should be careful in the 
choice of his business, but once having fairly entered 
upon his work he should toil unceasingly, until it has 
been determined that his work is a full s^uccess or a 
pitiable failure. 



Training the Will 251 

The student of history is frequently struck with the 
tremendous manifestation of will in leaders of great re- 
ligions. The will of the hero and the will of the mar- 
tyr are closely akin, but the will of the martyr will abide 
to death. The martyrs are not those alone 
who die at the stake for their faith. The ^^^ will, 
city, and even the solitary farm districts 
have not a few martyrs in the ranks of the uncomplain- 
ing common life. Their struggle is never seen, only 
God and their own hearts know its bitterness; yet 
they fail not. The reason is not far to seek. ** Re- 
ligion gives the soul a grasp of the universal and im- 
mutable; it feeds the will on Omnipotence; when such 
will is really possessed it is irresistible." There is 
high need for just such will to-day in the upper walks 
of life. Our civilisation gathers tremendous power 
into one human hand, and places tremendous responsi- 
bility upon a single human mind. Our government 
mightily sways for the success of the many or of the 
few with the passing of a word or the tossing of an 
opinion. How great the need that those who are mas- 
ters may also know how to obey, and that those who 
have power may rule delicately, humbly, wisely! Well 
may it be said to us, as to a nation of old: " And what 
doth the I^ord require of thee, but to do justly, and to 
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? '* 



CHAPTER XXI 

FKKlyING AND THK INNKR WF^ 

Aft^r good health, perhaps right feeling more than 

anything else contributes to real happiness in life. We 

have given much attention to the education 
Value of 
Feeline. ^^ ^^^ intellect, and now give much to the 

education of the body, but the feelings, as a 
definite field of educational activity, have received very 
little attention. Here a great opportunity offers itself 
for the Sunday-school teacher. Feeling is to man what 
steam is to the engine, electricity to the electric car, — 
it is the motive power which energises him for the ac- 
tivities of life. When the feeling is wholesome and 
strong, one is much more effective in life, and what is 
called a full-blooded man or woman is always more 
effective than the pale, emaciated person, provided 
always that the one of strong feeling is fully under the 
control of a disciplined will. 

How much ambition has contributed to the advance- 
Feeling ment of the world! How aspiration tugs 
and at our poor common life to lift it to higher 

Progress, leygigt How cheerfulness brightens our life 
and gives radiance even in the time of shadows! How 

252 



Feeling and the Inner Life 253 

love in its various manifestations has given courage, 
and patience, and a tireless devotion which no pen nor 
language can fully express! How the riches of friend- 
ship have beautified and ennobled life! 

But feeling is not always an unmixed good, at least 
devotion to it may be carried to a degree which be- 
tokens only foolishness and not sound judg- _ .. 
ment. It was in a prayer meeting that a Not an 
good brother arose and said, *' I feel, I Unmixed 
feel!" and then, overcome by his emotion, 
he said, * ' I cannot tell how I do feel, but oh ! I feel ! I 
feel!! I feel!!! " It is this senseless raving which has 
brought the true office of feeling into such disrepute 
and led many true and sensible people to seek the other 
extreme. The excessive development of feeling leads 
to a wide separation between profession and practice, 
and is hurtful insomuch as it covers with reproach 
the very claims that are put forward in the name of 
feeling as sacred and beyond censure. The element 
of feeling plays so large a part in ordinary human life 
that the culture of the feelings cannot safely be 
neglected. 

The cultivation of feeling depends upon two princi- 
ples: a rational understanding of its basis; and upon 
right exercise. The will contributes largely -pj^^ culti- 
to holding in the mind the specific idea vation of 
which we wish to make dominant, and if a ®® *"^' 
high ideal can be placed in the mind of the child and 
held there by its will, aspiration grows and an abiding 



254 Up Through Childhood 

force has been established in his life. By this process, 
cheerfulness, courage, or kindness may be made a habit. 

The heart is not only an organ of feeling, but it is an 
organ of thought and of insight. We have all felt the 
Tu tr 4. quickening of the mental powers under the 
as an impulse of the demands from friends or 

Organ of ^^^q need we recognise to serve those we 
deeply love. The heart instinctively feels 
the right thing to do in a given crisis. It throws light 
on many a hidden problem, and helps the intellect to 
work out difficult situations. It makes for wholesome 
relations and sane opinions; it puts emphasis upon 
fundamental things, and leads us back to reality when 
we have gone afar to follow the over-refinements of in- 
tellectual hair-splitting; it gives us that well-rounded 
completeness which makes our view of a subject worthy 
of confidence. We gain from the heart both light and 
heat, and in the warmth of feeling we find a new vigour 
of vision. The heart deserves to be cultivated for what 
it makes us feel and not less for what it makes us 
see. He who adds to a strong intellect the vigour and 
inspiration of a strong heart, both sees and feels. 

Professor Moulton draws a striking contrast between 
the man of the inner life, and the man of the outer life. 
The Inner ^^^ ^^^ lives may be complete, each in its 
and the own field, but representing radically dififer- 
Outer Life. ^^^ types of character. He uses Macbeth to 
illustrate a type of the practical man who is a master 
in the outer life, regarding him as ** prepared for any 



Feeling and the Inner Life 255 

emergency in which there is anything to be done. Yet 
a mental crisis or a moral problem afflicts him with a 
shock of an unfamiliar situation. ' ' We all have known 
men in whom the outer life predominated — men who 
lived and thought in the world of sense — men who 
would recognise no values except those which can be 
measured in money — men whose affections were like 
those of the animal — men everywhere energetic, force- 
ful, and efficient in the range of practical life. They 
kept their affairs well in hand, always had a satisfac- 
tory bank account for a rainy day, and, in short, were 
well provided for in the present life, if we leave out the 
element of happiness. We also have known men in 
whom the inner life was dominant — men who see 
spiritual values as greater than the values in the things 
of sense. For complete living the outer and the inner 
life must be in due proportion. The outer life must be 
nourished and supplied with all those things which 
could contribute to practical comfort and wholesome 
existence. But there is a spiritual sense, a fine insight, 
a subtle penetration, a deep discernment, which recog- 
nises values, which experiences realities, which assumes 
affairs far above the so-called practical realities. And 
it is to this world of feeling and this world of spiritual 
discernment that I would direct your earnest thought 
and desires. Seek for your students that power of 
mind that will enable them to recognise these higher 
things. lyct them appropriate as a part of their philoso- 
phy of life this very brief but all-inclusive symphony: 



256 Up Through Childhood 

** To live content with small means; to seek elegance 
rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; 
to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; 
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open 
heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk 
gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to 
let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up 
through the common, — this is my symphony." — Wm. 
Hknry Channing. 

There is a continual war going on between the inner 
and outer, and the one who deals only with the outer 
is likely to lack some of those noble things which make 
for the richest life. Some years ago, I was speaking 
with a scientist on the question of faith, and he very 
frankly said : ' * It seems to me that a man of scientific 
training, if he limits himself to that, must ever lack the 
mind for the deepest insight. ' ' Faith is not of things 
seen. One of the great contributions to this question 
of the inner life is Trine' s In Tune with the Infinite. 
He there reveals some of the sources of power to which 
no son or daughter of the living God may not have free 
access, and indeed only as man in his highest state 
opens his nature for the inflow of the divine can he do 
his greatest work in the world. To the same general 
purpose is much of Bishop Spaulding's Education and 
the Higher Life. So write Catholic and Protestant, 
poet and philosopher, thinker and mystic, if they have 
ever seen the inner vision. 

John Amos Comenius, great as a Moravian bishop 



Feeling and the Inner Life 257 

and educator, bears like testimony to aspiration as the 
source of his faith: '' I thank God that I have all my 
life been a man of aspirations . . . for the longing 
after good, however it springs up in the heart, is al- 
ways a rich flowing from the fountain of all good, from 
God." 

But it is not alone the inner life, there is an outer and 
a practical one. We live in a real world, with bread- 
and-butter demands upon us every day. We can make 
our loved ones happy only when we first contribute to 
their physical needs and afford them leisure for the high 
and spiritual needs. He who wrought most wisely for 
his fellow-men was described as one who went about 
doing good. To hold the balance between the inner 
and the outer life, to have the fine vision and the noble 
interest, is to have the practical talent and the ready 
application to fit that to the best service. 

When the young man recognises the large part which 
ideals play in character forming, and as he comes to 
know by experience not only the value of piace of 
these ideals but the process by which they Ideals in 
come to be achievable, he sees more and Character, 
more of the body and strength of the work which 
imagination performs in the realm of character. Let a 
great ideal come into a boy's mind in whatever humble 
form, and as it grows until it takes hold upon the life, 
he finds at last that he has been transformed, and never 
can be quite the same after as before this great ex- 
perience. Alas! with all its beauty and strength, the 
17 



258 Up Through Childhood 

imagination, by the very law of its nature, can also 
bring him sorrow and pain and death. One who has 
plunged into sin and whose heart or conscience has 
been seared by its deadly influence may do very high 
and noble things, but he can never be the same again. 
The little poem by Hezekiah Butterworth is as true to 
the spirit of philosophy as to the spirit of poetry. 

The Bird with a Broken Wing 

I walked through the woodland meadows, 

Where sweet the rushes sing, 
And found on a bed of mosses 

A bird with a broken wing. 
I healed its wound, and each morning 

It sang its old, sweet strain ; 
But the bird with a broken pinion 

Never soared so high again. 

I found a young life broken, 

By sin's seductive art ; 
And, touched with a Christian pity, 

I took him to my heart. 
He lived with a noble purpose. 

And struggled not in vain ; 
But the life that sin had stricken 

Never soared as high again. 

But the bird with a broken pinion, 

Kept another from the snare ; 
And the life that sin had stricken 

Raised another from despair. 
Each loss has its compensation. 

There is healing for every pain ; 
But the bird with a broken pinion 

Never soars as high again. 



Feeling and the Inner Life 259 

For the far reach of the intellect and the high reach 

of the spirit, there is no tj^pe equal to the type set forth 

by the sinless Jesus; and to him who would 

- , , . - . r The Great 

attain the best things, there is no way of ex- i^^sA 

cellence except the supreme way of seeking 
only what is to abide forever, resolutely excluding all 
that can hurt or hinder. There is so much in the grind 
of daily life which tends to narrow or restrict our out- 
look, that I am glad now and then to turn my mind to 
the greater and truer things. I gaze upon the stars 
and the great suns that make but a misty light in the 
far heavens; I know the value of astronomy as a disci- 
pline for the imagination, dealing, as it does, with im- 
mensity in space, and as day slips away to day, and 
year to year, I have some dim recognition of the 
boundlessness of space. I turn to geology, and read of 
the ages gone, of the work wrought, and then I wait in 
awe and reverence with the thought that time is long, 
and that the eternal God has been building from the 
beginning; and as I see the footprints of the creatures 
and recognise the infinite years by which bodies have 
been finished and minds formed, I cry out with the old 
German philosopher, '* O God! I think thy thoughts 
after thee." 



CHAPTER XXII 

TRAINING A CHII^D'S FAITH 

I wond:^r whether we fully realise the large place of 
faith in our hard practical business world. Small as is 
the place we are disposed to allow for it, it is really one 
of the large factors in every department of life. Our 
civilisation would fall in a day if it were not for the 
faith which man has in his fellow. The New York 
Clearing House handles values daily which reach to 
the millions, but because of this faith in men it is able 
successfully to handle these large sums with only a few 
hundred thousand dollars in cash; the remainder is 
represented by commercial paper, which really depends 
upon the faith of a man in his brother. 

The faith of every man in his kind and even his faith 
in God rests upon the few. Silas Marner was deceived 
Faith ^y William Dane, his friend, and by Sarah 

Rests on his sweetheart, and his faith in man and 
the Few. q^^ ^^g dashed to pieces. Think, my 
reader, if two or three, or at most half a dozen, of your 
tried friends should prove false, this world would be 
covered with a pall as black as midnight! A recogni- 
tion of this truth will lead every man to a new effort 

260 



Training a Child's Faith 261 

for sincerity. Since our faith rests in the few, you and 

I must be sincere, in order that those who depend upon 

us may not find their faith made false. Faith gives 

encouragement to human life. It makes things seem 

worthy of doing, and adds to all experience a zest 

which even time cannot pall. 

If a child is to have strong faith in truth and man 

and God, he must be guarded from rude shocks, he 

must be taught to know the right things, 

i- 1 ^ Guard the 

and yet he must realise that there are Child 

wrong ones in the world. His confidence in 
his fellow men may be lost or fixed by his faith in his 
parents, in his teacher, or in a few intimate friends. 
There is no sadness for the weary heart like the sad- 
ness of disappointed friendship, and the feeling of trust 
betrayed. Happy indeed is that one who, like Brutus, 
can testify that all friends have been true to him. It 
is a supreme joy so to choose one's friends that they 
may be faithful always. 

Faith in the father and in the mother is the natural 
outgrowth of the child's relationship in the Christian 
home. When carefully guarded here and Faith 

allowed to strengthen with his strength, his Moves 
faith steadily grows finer and truer; and it 
is the most natural thing in the world that Higher 
his faith should be lifted from the plane of Plane, 

earthly hope and happiness to the heavenly Father 
and the heavenly home. 

The faith of the child differs greatly from that of the 



262 Up Through Childhood 

adult. It is less supported, and is often founded on 
The Faith simple testimony. There is an instinctive 

of a Child fajth that belongs to happy childhood. This 

and the 

Faith of faith may be shattered by a treacherous 

an Adult, friend, by a vicious parent, or by a hypo- 
critical teacher. It is a part of our business to guard 
the child from treacherous friends. Every child ought 
to know that there is evil in the world, and ought to be 
brought up with so much strength and so much discre- 
tion as to guard himself against it. It is a sad com- 
mentary on our system of human life that with the 
passing years men grow more and more distrustful, 
and in too many cases their life narrows to the point of 
selfishness. ' 

There are whole regions of fine, true life, which may 
almost be called zones of brotherliness, where human 
Zones of kindness and brotherly interest manifest 
Brotherli- themselves toward all worthy comers. This 
"^^^' is particularly true of some of the smaller 

colleges in the Middle West. The life is simple and 
strong, and the elements are mixed in such fashion as 
to provide for the unfolding of the highest and best in 
human nature. Rich and profitable as is the develop- 
ment to be found in such a community, the child has 
in this cold, hard world need for self-protection, and 
must be taught not only the importance of such protec- 
tion, but must be given such strength and judgment as 
to secure protection. It is well never to give one's self 
completely, except when he is sure of the receiver. 



Training a Child's Faith 263 

But the promiscuous giving of one's deeper interest and 

finer elements is to cast the pearls and find that they 

have fallen before swine. 

Knowledge is the condition of faith, and without that 

basis for our confidence, our faith in man or things will 

not long remain. True it is that Paul calls 

. Knowledge 

faith the substance of things hoped for. But ^^^ Faith. 

the very derivation of the word makes for 
the point I wish to establish. The substance is that 
which stands under or supports, and that must begin 
in knowledge, assumed or real. From faith in the 
human comes faith in the divine. 

The element of wonder is deeply planted in human 
nature. Everywhere it manifests itself. The form of 
manifestation is determined by the amount -j-j^g 

of culture the individual possesses. The Element 
savage wonders at things that he but half of ^o^^^^- 
understands. He marvels at a looking-glass, yet is not 
surprised at a steam-engine. There is a wonder in 
childhood just as there is a wonder in the childhood of 
every race. It is a high form of curiosity which incites 
the child to explorations in many regions. Here are 
found incentives to great ideals, to noble conduct, and 
to the whole range of worthy efibrts in keeping with a 
strenuous life. And in this spirit of marvellousness is 
found the fruitful field for all kinds of delusion and 
superstition. Through many of these it is natural for 
the child to pass. He repeats only in part the experi- 
ences of the race, and is likely to come through many 



264 up Through Childhood 

of them without harm arid with added power and sym- 
pathy. But by all means he should be encouraged in 
the adoption of a sane outlook on the world and its 
wonders. He should examine things patiently, care- 
fully, and earnestly, and bring each to the test of fact. 
But woe to the man who would rob childhood of its 
joys and dreams, who would take away the beauty and 
softness of cloudland, and leave him nothing but the 
cold hard light of common day! Better that the child 
should cherish a thousand harmless delusions, than 
that his nature should be cold, hard, distrustful, and 
cynical. You may train him in carefulness, accuracy, 
and common-sense, but you must not rob him of the 
wealth of the world, and bring upon him a withering 
atmosphere which is the beginning of the second death. 
We have seen that faith is fine and high, and that it 
appeals to the very best in human nature, that, guarded 

„ by the laws of common-sense and by the in- 

Summary. ^ ^ "^ 

junctions of a wise teacher, the nature of the 
child may be made rich and responsive to all good 
things, and there will be belief and aspiration and even 
knowledge otherwise impossible. We have seen that 
faith rests largely in the human, and that the child 
must be guarded from treacherous friends. It should 
be the supreme effort of the individual to carry a fine 
high faith with the joy and hope of youth far into the 
dust and toil of our striving daily life. 

For well she kept her genial mood 
And simple faith of maidenhood ; 



Training a Child's Faith 265 

Before her still a cloud-laod lay, 
The mirage loomed across her way, 
The morning dew that dries so soon 
With others, glistened at her noon ; 
Through years of toil and soil and care, 
From glossy tress to thin grey hair. 
All unprofaned she held apart. 
The virgin fancies of the heart. 

Whitimer's Snow-Bound. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD 

The; purpose of this chapter is to bring the boy a 
little nearer to our lives. In not a few cases, the boy, 
coming in and out day after day, is practically a 
stranger to the father or mother, or both, particularly 
after the age of twelve. Now there is no greater work 
than to train a generation so wisely that the world may 
be carried forward in its life. The boys must make the 
advancement, they are the born leaders, they make or 
adjust the economic conditions. Truth, justice, honour, 
purity, and nobleness in them will soon find place in 
society and government. Help them to a higher life 
and you move the world a little toward righteousness. 
To help them, you must know and love them. To 
know them, you must meet them on their own plane; 
they would go to yours, but cannot. 

All approach on the part of the older person must be 

made brightly, cheerily, and sincerely. '* I^et there be 

even in the institution of higher spiritual 

T .®.. *^ aim, not only the play method, but the play 
Spirit. 

spirit; otherwise the child must feel: * Oh, 
that tiresome grown-up person with a mission! Does 
he not know that I live in a world of play ? Why will 

366 



From Boyhood to Manhood 267 

he drag me into his world of work, instead of coming 
into mine ? ' " The play life is full of inspiration to the 
boy, and gives him thoughts and outlook which with- 
out it are impossible. He gets an exercise and a prac- 
tice in doing things that are worth while. They are 
deeply worth while, for they are the beginnings which 
make him so much more the man. Only here and 
there is the play life coming to be regarded as the 
birthright of the growing child, an element which can- 
not be taken away without actual loss. 

The boy himself would not claim to have a religion, 
and a majority of grown people will not grant that he 
has. And yet it is very well established j^jg 

that the boy has certain governing principles Religious 
for his moral life; he may not be able to ^^^®* 

state them, but he generally stands pretty true to what 
he believes. Somewhat unlike the adult, the boy is 
likely to keep very close relation between his conduct 
and his actual belief. It is no unusual thing for a child 
to answer questions and carry on a conversation in a 
fashion to please his elders, but when you get to the 
real child you will find that his belief and his practice 
are in rather close accord. 

The fundamental consideration in all plans for re- 
ligious work is this: the boy's life consists in action. 
He has not learned to be thoughtful. It is j^^ impulse 
an impulse, then a deed. He is ignorant, Then a 
and ignorant chiefly because of inexperi- ^^ * 

ence. He is in part a savage, and this savage element 



268 Up Through Childhood 

in his nature demands action. Any religious training 
which does not take into account some of the funda- 
mental characteristics of a boy's religion will fail to 
get good results. Action, then, is the governing prin- 
ciple of his nature. Honesty is a fundamental char- 
acteristic, and his honesty is, in view of his limited 
knowledge, just as true and just as thorough as that of 
the grown man. He believes with all his heart that 
goodness does count, and when he thinks of the eflfort 
in his life, he feels that somehow it ought to secure for 
him a certain amount of favourable consideration. He 
scorns stinginess, but, very often, unknown to himself, 
he is both selfish and lazy. He believes in fairness and 
in fair people. The boy nature responds readily to 
truth, and he is brought up to be truthful just as a girl 
is brought up to be virtuous. The boy has great faith 
in right feeling, and if he had the experience of riper 
years, his heart would echo just as sincerely as yours 
or mine, those stirring words of Faber : 

Right is right as God is God, 

And right the day shall win ; 
To doubt would be disloyalty, 

To falter would be sin. 

The disposition to truthfulness is, in a strong boy, 

one of his most attractive traits, and the courage with 

which he comes up to meet reproof chal- 

Truthful- Ignores our admiration. I think that it may 
ncss* 

be stated as a general truth, that a strong 

child, boy or girl, is likely to be truthful, and, in the 



From Boyhood to Manhood 269 

case of the boy in particular, I am thoroughly con- 
vinced that he must be taught to lie. Now there is a 
type of the imaginative boy who to many minds is a 
born deceiver, — but no. Groups of pictures come 
thronging to his mind, and in his early years he does 
not know how to describe them. These he tells in 
language which to us seems untrue. A little child who 
was standing by a window said, " O Ma! I see a pig 
coming down the road with a bonnet on." Some 
mothers would have called that lying, but his mother 
was wise and only said, "I will tell you a better way to 
say that." She knew that he was giving expression, 
in the most natural and direct way, to an image that 
had taken shape in his mind. Cases of this kind must 
be cared for with patience and consideration, and with 
a full recognition that there is no intentional meanness 
at the bottom of such statements. 

There are many people who think that a boy has but 
little feeling, but it really constitutes a 
pretty large share of what he would regard ,.°^ ^ 

as his religion, if his attitude on the subject 
should be analysed. 

There comes to him, in times of keen disappoint- 
ment or sorrow, a kind of grief which he deems holy. 
It is holy, for it gives him aspiration for _ . , 

better things, and leads him to feel a near- Seems 

ness to the suffering world. Then there is *° ^^"^ 
the feeling of friendship which he has for 
his chum, and the love which he has for father, mother. 



270 Up Through Childhood 

and sister. lyast, but not least, it must be recognised 
that a boy lives by ideals, and that these are held before 
him in a great and strong and helpful way, and that 
they modify his life. With him, character is best 
formed from living examples, and the instruction is 
given in deeds. He is led to the thought and love of 
higher things by cherishing the ideal which rises to a 
higher meaning as he advances toward its realisation. 
Dickens's story of The Child and the Star has found 
a realisation in the life of many a boy who, looking up 
the shining pathway to his friends who have gone be- 
fore, is led at last to the home of rest. 

What has been said so far applies chiefly, though not 

entirely, to boys under twelve or fourteen years of age. 

At about this time a great change comes 

ysica ^^^^ ^^^ candidate for manhood. It often 
Changes. 

advances gradually and sometimes for 

months without being noted by other members of the 
family; but it is going on. The years from thirteen 
to twenty-one may be divided into two periods, an 
earlier and a later period. The whole period covers 
the time of the general change from conditions of 
boyhood to those of manhood. There is often a time 
of rapid growth, when it seems that all the boy's 
strength and energy are spent in simply making more 
body. There is not the usual physical vigour; he 
frequently does not do so well in his studies, and the 
common phrase is ' ' He is growing too fast to do any- 
thing else." In the later years, this material, which 



From Boyhood to Manhood 271 

has been so rapidly accumulating, is elaborated and 
adjusted for the perfection of a well-formed body. 
And there is need. For the muscles grow so rapidly 
that the bones are not rigidly held to their places, and 
the joints are loose. He does not know where to put 
his hands or his feet, and is continually conscious of 
too much body for him to manage with ease; he is not 
used to it. He feels like the driver of a team of eight 
horses who has been accustomed to the reins for only 
two. Good training and time will right this difficulty, 
and whatever the amount of growth, he will be able to 
guide himself and make the goal with grace and 
strength. 

In the earlier part of this period, he is usually re- 
served. Before, he has been free in the household, and 

played with his sisters or teased them to his 

, , Mental 

heart s content; now, he wants to get away changes 

from the girls; he likes to be by himself, or 
with other boys. The gang instinct predominates, and 
it is one of Nature's ways of preserving him from the 
play of other forces in order that she may make him 
more completely and strongly man. It is at this time 
that the good aunt or elderly cousin is grieved and out- 
raged that this growing boy, that she has called a child, 
no longer welcomes her caresses. He does not like to 
be kissed, he does not like to be petted, he wants to be 
free. He is beginning to be a man, and like one whose 
social standing is not assured, he is the more particu- 
lar on that account, not by design, but instinctively. 



2 72 Up Through Childhood 

Nature, the kind old nurse, is working out for him a 
new relationship to all the world, and to the female part 
of it in particular. I^et no parent feel special concern. 
When the boy has sufficiently ripened, and his mind 
and thought and life are ready for free and open inter- 
course in society, he will gratefully receive counsel, 
and welcome the invitation to a more active social 
life. 

In the days of early childhood, and even later, boys 
and girls are pagan rather than Christian in their in- 
stincts; not that they are wicked, but they 
pin ua ^^^ taught to do many things and to say 
many things which, though Christian in 
form have little meaning to them. The deep, spiritual 
instinct does not find its full play until in the teens. 
About fifteen or sixteen, the youth begins to feel strong 
religious instincts and desires. He has in part broken 
with the past, but he goes out to conquer a new world 
and to comprehend and include new things in his 
equipment. This is a time of great hungers. The 
youth is not prepared to give out ideas, but to absorb 
and to gain is the mind's desire, and so ready are its 
powers that they will absorb much though they can 
express little. Of religious things, this is likewise 
true. There is a great turning of the mind toward 
that Power which is above him, and blindly or know- 
ingly he will, with half an opportunity, declare himself 
for a spiritual life. This is the great age of conversion. 
It is significant that those churches which emphasise 



From Boyhood to Manhood 273 

the religious life of youth by confirmation administer 
that rite when the child is fourteen years old or later; 
and likewise it is an important proof of the stage of 
the child's religious development that at the age of 
fifteen or sixteen by far the larger number of conver- 
sions occur. A little later there sweeps in the altruis- 
tic element, and the youth begins to recognise his 
obligation of service to his fellows. He no longer 
draws aside but seeks opportunity for companionship 
and service. A new and holy influence comes to him, 
and he begins to think of choosing a life career. In 
the earlier days this choice is usually greatly influenced 
by the opportunity which any given pursuit will afford 
for service to his kind and for recognition of his worth 
among men. This is his time for stamping his richest 
and best power upon those with whom he comes in con- 
tact. He has no wealth too precious and no thought 
too high to share with those who really invite his con- 
fidence. This is a time of supreme self-assertion, not 
always or even often rudely, but with a feeling of un- 
tried power which always assumes that it is able to ac- 
complish more than the endowment will warrant. This 
is the great time of imagination; and every dream is 
tinged with gold. Other men have met difiBculty, 
other men have found defeat; his path shall be a 
clear one, and the end, success. He begins to know 
his power, but it will be long ere he learns its 
limitations. 

Now let me emphasise some points where our 
18 



2 74 ^ Up Through Childhood 

religious teaching and practice fail to connect with the 
boy's life. The traditional idea of goodness is negative. 
*'Thou shalt not" is written, not alone 
in the Ten Commandments, but in a thou- 
sand commandments, and he is praised as good when 
he simply does nothing. You say to the child, '* Do 
not," and his whole nature says, ** Do." Every nerve 
and muscle within him calls for action, and yet you 
say, * ' Sit still and be good ' ' ; but action is the law of 
life. To him religion means a long face and a quiet 
manner; it means dignity of behaviour. People insist 
upon the boy's adopting the religion of the grown man. 
Too often religion seems to him cold and repulsive, not 
because it is cold and repulsive, but because it is 
clothed in a cold and repulsive form, and in words 
which he does not understand and which take no 
more hold on him than if spoken in an unknown 
tongue. But ah! how his heart warms to a loving 
Father who will "give a fellow a chance," who ap- 
proves honour, truth, and honesty in action, and who 
is glad when his children are active and happy. It is 
true that a boy does not understand religion as it is so 
often presented, but it is also true that the boy himself 
is not understood. He has many a period of quiet 
thought and many a longing for a noble life. How his 
heart yearns for a sympathetic friend, and when he 
finds one who can understand and appreciate him, his 
whole nature warms to such a friendship, and he is 
ready to seal his devotion with his life if need be! A 



From Boyhood to Manhood 275 

boy then is simply untamed, thoughtless, not with 
the ignorance of viciousness, but with the ignorance of 
inexperience. His greatest need is a judicious, ap- 
preciative, sympathetic friend who is a little farther 
along on life's pathway. 

The period of adolescence is a time of budding in- 
terests. A thousand new instincts and tendencies show 
themselves, and if encouraged, grow to strength; neg- 
lected, they shrink away and disappear. In this age 
should be found rich opportunity for the development 
of the religious life. The highest instincts of love, 
faith, and service should be met with a cordial hand, 
and surrounded with a spirit of warmth and encourage- 
ment which will produce true, strong, and steady 
growth. High moral standards should be set; strong 
and true demands made without question. The youth 
should recognise the importance of a complete sur- 
render to righteousness; he should be taught the op- 
portunity of high, wholesome, and difficult service, 
lyife now takes on a new meaning; now to him comes 
a supreme purpose, and all the forces of his life are 
turned to that which is worth his effort. Young men 
of this age do not ask for easy things to do; they are 
willing to attempt the difficult, they want the strenuous 
life. The knightly spirit is there, if it be evoked; and 
the yearning of the king and conqueror may be called 
to bring in the triumph of the highest and best in the 
unfolding and masterful life of the youth. His vic- 
tories are to be tinged with a light that is not of this 



21^ Up Through Childhood 

world, and his rewards are no longer cheap or petty, 
but mighty, majestic, and eternal. In this age he may 
gain the far vision and recognise such a pattern of man 
as the grim ages have set for heroes from the morning 
of the world. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

FROM GIRI.HOOD TO WOMANHOOD 

In the early years of childhood there is little differ- 
ence in the life of the girl and the boy. The boy likes 
to play with dolls, is interested in many of the sports 
and plans and purposes of the girl's play-life. For the 
most part, the play-life of early childhood is in no 
sense strongly marked by peculiarities which separate 
the sexes. The girl likes the free outdoor life, and will 
go with her little brother into the many childish sports 
with all the zest and pleasure of the best play -fellow 
that he can find. Many a girl is endowed with abun- 
dant energy, and must have room for its manifestation. 
This leads to the life of the torn -boy, which receives so 
much censure from people who think they are proper, 
and have little practical acquaintance with the desires 
and instincts of childhood. The command is: " Now, 
sit still and look pretty and be mamma's little lady." 
To be ** mamma's little lady," while every nerve and 
muscle is crying out for action! To be ** mamma's 
little lady " is to be a caricature of the real child, and 
bound with cords which will prevent the development 
of that wholesome and strong nature which the growing 

277 



278 Up Through Childhood 

girl should have. The mental agony and the dis- 
comfort that many a girl goes through in this period 
of tom-boy life to which her native disposition inclines 
her, is beyond words. The instinct of girlhood under 
normal conditions is a true guide, and there is little 
danger that she will carry the boisterous behaviour too 
late into her years for her own best development. Little 
by little the womanly instincts will gain the ascend- 
ency, and there will develop quietness and reserve 
and genuine modesty, which will delight the heart of 
the mother. When under free scope and right oppor- 
tunities it is pretty safe to trust her, and among the 
multitude of things which seek for the chief place, 
those which make for the best life are pretty likely to 
find their place. 

Society to-day applies a widely different moral stand- 
ard to boys and girls. Honour is the predominant 

note in a boy's life, virtue in a girl's. Many 
Difference 
in the ^ father who would severely punish his son 

Standards for failure in point of truth, would allow 

to which almost with approval ungracious behaviour, 

Boys and 

Girls are scornful speech, and even profanity. The 

Required to girl is taught to count gentleness and agree- 
ableness and virtue as the elements of char- 
acter which must be maintained at any cost, and she is 
freely forgiven for any deceit, or even half dishonesty, 
which seems necessary to sustain her reputation. 
Society has for the boy real forgiveness for any lapse 
from the standard of purity; but it has only unsparing 



From Girlhood to Womanhood 279 

condemnation for the girl. There is a great need that 
these standards shall be somewhat readjusted, and 
that we should demand that the boy be agreeable, 
gracious, and considerate of others, and that he be pure 
in word and life. And of the girl we should not only 
demand these characteristics, but that she have some 
of the strength and truth and sense of honour 
which are so large an element in the character of a 
good man. 

The girl is sensitive to the atmosphere in which she 
lives; and, perhaps to an undue degree, her tendency 
is to shape everything to correspond with sensitive 
the moral and social standards which are to Atmos- 
about her, so that she is taught to sacrifice pnere. 

health, life, and character to these standards. There 
is need for greater independence and a disposition for 
her to take responsibility, plan her own life, perform 
her duties, and hold her place in the world. She 
should have a high ideal of personal excellence, and 
strive in every way for the best in body, mind, and spirit. 
One can have little patience with the idea which in the 
minds of so many parents excuses all sorts of defects 
in behaviour, even to the point of downright vicious- 
ness, with the single statement, " I have tried to train 
this girl right, and now I hope everything will come 
out for the best. " It is a part of the duty of parent or 
teacher to get results. One can have large charity for 
the immaturity and ignorance of childhood; any child 
who makes a blunder from either of these causes ought 



28o up Through Childhood 

not to be seriously censured, but it seems to me that we 

are inclined to allow too much the go-as-you-please 

method, which is one of the most hurtful factors in a 

child's life. 

In all character forming, the value of ideals is high, 

and it is a much more important feature than is usually 

considered in forming the character of girls. 
Value of ^, ,....,.. , . r 

Ideals. ^^^ Kina of ideal is the supreme question for 

a girl or a boy, but with a girl there is an ad- 
ditional element. Her dominant feeling is a desire to 
please, and this will lead her to conform very closely to 
the ideal character which she most admires in woman. 
The benefit that comes to her from personal acquaint- 
ance with a large-minded, generous, strong, true 
woman is beyond all computation; but there is another 
factor that has much to do with her growth, and with 
her behaviour. It is the ideal which she has of men, 
and in particular of one man whose half-formed image 
is cherished in her heart and mind long before her 
friends realise it, and even long before she knows it 
herself. This dim, unconscious ideal of an expected 
prince is an always-present, strong, and yet unmeasured 
power in determining her choices and in directing her 
activities. The problem is to teach her to be strong 
and noble, and to cultivate a really generous disposi- 
tion even when this course runs counter to the dim 
ideal which she holds in her heart. The great harm 
comes when she fits this ideal to a name and man who 
may in reality lack all its essential qualities. 



From Girlhood to Womanhood 281 

Every year of experience with children and every 

year in the study of life emphasises the importance of 

right motive. It is everything to have a 

girl wish to do the things that will give her "^^^ Right 
^ & & Motive. 

the best life and the best character. With 

wise teaching, nature is our ally. The very things 
that are best for the girl's growth and development are 
very often the things which she is instinctively 
prompted to do. 

All our social life is developing more and more the 
need for service. There is opportunity for a great, 
strong, and beautiful life of service for boy and girl, 
man and woman; and as we more fully realise the 
social ideal, service will become more apparent as the 
end for which we labour. To render a satisfactory 
service, there is need for a full development of every 
power of mind and body. The feelings must also be 
rightly developed and strongly disciplined. Every 
girl must have so much strength that she may not be 
a slave to the instincts of selfishness, which our social 
life drills into her being from babyhood. I^et her ap- 
preciate deeply and truly the value of graciousness in 
daily life. L,et her seek by every means in her power 
the earnest and inspiring art of conversation. She 
should be capable of entertaining not only by what she 
says and does, but by what she is. She should know 
herself and be able to live in harmony with law, and 
to some degree at least, to influence the people about 
her. 



282 Up Through Childhood 

She needs to be taught the art of business. Not so 
much because she expects to do business in any large 
way, but in order that she may have practi- 
Trainine- ^^^ ^^^ sensible ideas of receipts and ex- 
penditures, and be able to protect herself and 
her household from the impositions and dishonesty of 
the thousand enemies who prey upon people. Then, 
too, with a fair business training she will conduct her- 
self, when dealing with business men, in a way wholly 
different from the untaught woman of to-day. A 
banker once said to me that he would rather wait on 
ten men than on one woman, for she was sure to be 
petty, querulous, and suspicious. His testimony has 
since been confirmed to me by not a few men who have 
had large experience in business life. 

However, the defect lies not so much with woman, as 
with the fact that she is untrained, and where she is 
ignorant she is distrustful, as any one would be. Every 
age has had its share of strong and noble women, who 
have impressed themselves upon the people in their 
community and in the broader fields of life. The study 
of these characters will contribute mightily to the de- 
velopment of the right kind of woman for the future. 
The woman cannot be a man; and much as she may 
admire manly character, the kind which she can best 
imitate is the strong, noble, and womanly character of 
those who have learned how to live wisely and well, 
and have been endowed with sufiicient strength to do it 
with some large degree of success. 



From Girlhood to Womanhood 283 

It is a strange and interesting lesson in human life, 
that sorrow often brings out the pure gold in character. 
I think that this is particularly true of char- ^, 

acter in woman. Now and then there is a Ministry 
nature which is only embittered by sor- o^ Sorrow, 
row, but the great army of women are rendered finer, 
stronger, and gentler by means of this experience. 
There is a tendency to be superficial and playful in the 
presence of things that are serious and important, and 
just in proportion as a woman experiences the ministry 
of sorrow, she gains a solidity, a strength, and a gentle- 
ness which are beyond words. I have all along felt that 
there is greater need in the life of our girls for the in- 
fluence of true-hearted men. The mother does more 
than all, and yet the girl's ideas may be greatly helped 
by the influence of a father or a brother. Our schools, 
too, need a greater number of male teachers, men who 
are strong and vigorous, and sane in their outlook on 
life, and who can by their vigour and earnestness help 
in the most practical and sensible way the development 
of the best elements in the girl's character. In many 
of the high schools, this need has been pretty fully sup- 
plied, but in the upper grades of the grammar schools 
there is still great need for the virile influence of man- 
hood. It would make mightily for the improvement 
of human life and character. I do not mean the wo- 
manish men, who sometimes teach school, but genuine 
men, with the vigour, strength, and breadth which 
ought to characterise the man who teaches. 



284 up Through Childhood 

Pity is a strong element in woman's character. She 
goes naturally and almost joyously to the work of 
healing and helpfulness, provided only she has been 
properly taught to do this work. Ordinarily she has 
larger leisure and a different kind of leisure from that 
of man. Every community has a score of things which 
need her insight, touch, and practical helpfulness. 
To-day, a new spirit is coming into her religious life, 
and it is coming through the colleges. She is taught 
ways of doing things that are better than any her 
neighbours know; she gains a kindness of judgment 
from the three or four years of the life with girls from 
different sections of the country and from different 
planes of duty and experience. As the strenuous life 
comes to prevail more fully, we may have a smaller 
percentage of men who graduate from the colleges which 
make chiefly and directly for culture; but I think we 
shall have more women who will go to these institu- 
tions to qualify themselves for a broad, rich, and true 
life in order that from their vantage point of oppor- 
tunity and culture they may carry light and healing to 
the family home, whether it be the remote farm-house, 
or a home in the busy streets of the crowded city. 

The girl is not an undeveloped man, but has as her 

chief charm the pleasing and effective points of differ- 

_ ence which are known as sensitiveness, 

Summary. ' 

warm affection, responsiveness, strong emo- 
tional nature, and the personal point of view. She 
needs breadth and knowledge and truthfulness. 



From Girlhood to Womanhood 285 

Every group of qualities receives enforcemeut from all 
the rest. As things now stand, the mother's influence 
is rightly dominant in the girl's life, and makes for 
many of the best elements in character. But with our 
changing civilisation, there is no doubt that the girl 
would be greatly helped by a larger share of the influ- 
ence of father, brother, or teacher, granted, of course, 
that these are true-hearted men. She will learn from 
them the wider plane of conduct which makes for self- 
control, for poise of character, and general usefulness. 
There is need for her to have great devotion to truth, 
and to that high sense of honour which is so much 
admired in men of a rich and generous nature. 



PART IV 
THE GRADUATE 



287 



CHAPTKR XXV 

This book rests upon two fundamental considera- 
tions: the first is, that the long period of infancy gives 

opportunity to train the young child for the 

Summary, 
duties and responsibilities of life; and the 

second, that this training is worth giving because of 
the strong religious instinct which is native to the 
character of every well-born child. 

The book is divided into four parts: Part I, dealing 
with the School of Life, in which are discussed (i) life 
as opportunity, (2) that aim of education which will 
make it possible to use this opportunity aright, and (3) 
the institutions of education which, as environment, 
contribute to the unfolding and instruction of the child. 
Part II deals with the teacher in relation to his work 
as a quickener, and then passes to the teacher's pre- 
paration, his relation to the Bible, and last and best 
his relation to the child. Part III deals with the 
young being in all stages of his growth from birth to 
adult life, first taking up the broad question of man's 
place in nature, and dealing with that as fundamental 
to all further interpretation. The other topics concern 

289 



290 Up Through Childhood 

themselves with man's reaction on environment, with 
the development of the mental powers and the placing 
of these in due relation to each other, with the training 
of the child's faith, and with the specific consideration of 
the boy's and the girl's experiences to adult life. If 
this discussion has accomplished the purpose the writer 
intended, the reader is now prepared for a summary of 
the rounded life, which should include a discussion of 
the conditions met and the results obtained in the in- 
dividual life; and as a second part, a study of the 
conditions of society which would result from the 
predominance in society of men and women taught and 
trained to discharge their duties to each other. 

The first great aim in education is self-realisation. 
It includes the highest development of the powers of a 

given individual. Not all persons can be 
The 
Ind' 'dual ^^^^^^Y ^^^^ developed in every direction; 

every man has his points of strength, and 
his points of weakness. The first condition for indi- 
vidual development and effectiveness is, along with the 
process of growth, to have the youth know his own 
powers and tendencies. Knowing these, he ought to 
be able to work on the strong side and give the weaker 
side of his nature only such exercise as may be neces- 
sary and desirable for its unfolding to constitute so 
nearly as possible a well-developed character. 

The child with good natural endowment and trained 
in harmony with the principles we have discussed, 
ought to enjoy superb health of body, mind, and spirit. 



The Rounded Life 291 

Physically, he ought to have the plus health of 
which Kmerson talks — that feeling which makes it a 
joy to live. This should give him vigour of Develop- 
mind and body, and a strong impulse toward ment of 
righteousness. He should have an elastic Body. 

mind which springs back from all doubt, gloom, and 
discouragement, and rights itself amid adverse circum- 
stances. The mind should know how to keep its poise 
and govern itself. He will recognise that man's defeat 
comes from within, and that the enemies which can do 
him real harm are only the unworthy and unhallowed 
affections of his own nature. Such a mind will be 
heroic. Though overthrown, it will not be disheart- 
ened; and though conquered, it will not surrender. A 
well-trained mind will know not only how to govern it- 
self, but to govern others, and to govern them magnani- 
mously and kindly for their own good. It will be able 
to protect Self from the wolves of modern society, and 
will be so gentle as not to harm either the weak or the 
careless. This kind of a man will have those instincts, 
aspirations, and purposes which make education a 
permanent institution of life. Such a one could grow 
always and everywhere, accumulating knowledge from 
all sources, and sorting, classifying, and applying this 
knowledge in all right ways. 

Growing out of this attitude of the mind and this 
equipment, there will come such a development as shall 
put his spirit in harmony with the great spiritual 
forces of the world, and such a man will strive not only 



292 Up Through Childhood 

in his own might to effect worthy results, but will be 

re-enforced by the hands of righteousness in all times 

^ , and in all lands. He will not be the slave 

Develop- 
ment of the of doubt or of uncertainty, but with a sane 

Spiritual and wholesome optimism will feel that God 

rules the world, and that right should 

prevail because it is right. Forces of wickedness 

everywhere will shrink from him, and his touch in the 

community will be strong and forceful for the best 

things. He will be qualified to fill the measure of man 

in its largest interpretation. 

His tongue was framed to music ; 

His hand was armed with skill ; 
His face the mould of beauty ; 

His heart the throne of will. 

E)m^rSON. 

Such conditions will contribute to a new develop- 
ment of society. Then weariness and want and the 
Develoo- agedness which is death will slip away 
ment of and the world will renew its youth. We 
Society. shall indeed realise that the greatest wealth 
is human character, and that though petty details may 
be wearisome, the joys of life are inexhaustible. 

It is not youth, but life that is the story of- begin- 
nings. To the man who is living the w^ell-rounded 
life, who has touched its heights and depths and has 
felt some sense of its mighty opportunities and marvel- 
lous achievements, there comes a vision of the future 
too big for words. The mind reaches clearly and 



The Rounded Life 293 

strongly, hopefully and joyously, to a time beyond, 
to a golden age of experience, an age which shall be 
marked by endless developments. This is the basis of 
a hope without limit. 

In the new society there will be time enough. No 
more work half done because the day has failed. No 
more offices of friendship slighted for lack of time, 
no great achievement turned aside, no worthy thing 
neglected, for lack of time. Time will be considered 
as eternity begun, and the implacable rush, haste, 
and confusion which mark our daily life will give 
way to a leisure which makes possible work more 
nearly perfect. Men will then work for the joy of 
it. The pleasure of the process and the joy in the 
product will constitute a large part of the reward for 
service. 

There will be space enough. No more crowded 
attics, no more narrow back-yards, no more grinding 
poverty which forbids room for the elastic life of child- 
hood to expand as best it may; but a boundless range 
of air and sky, a world of infinite beauty, bounded by 
no four walls, and limited not by the petty claims of 
struggling worldly landlords or tenants. We shall 
have room to breathe, room to think, room to live that 
great full life which is the heritage of humanity ! 

And the vision of facilities enough! Every right 
desire of the longing soul shall be satisfied; and long- 
ing for knowledge and insight and love and power 
shall find its satisfaction. Out of the heart and the 



294 Up Through Childhood 

effort of this life there shall come abundant facilities 
for the finest and highest growth of each and all. Men 
are bound together by common ties, men have the one 
touch of common love which makes the whole world 
akin. But as each man stands upon the border of the 
great eternity and peers into the dim future, he must 
be deeply conscious that his life is too short for the 
realisation of his possible development, that for a being 
with the boundless aspiration of an enlightened soul 
there must be an KTe:rnity for effort and development. 
For every other desire of man's life there comes an an- 
swer which grants all abundance where only the little 
is asked. So I take it that the greatest good which 
can come to a man from the well-rounded life is the 
growing consciousness that the life which is to abide 
forever is greater than the present, and that out of the 
trials and discouragements and doubts of this practical 
and painful work-a-day world there shall come a new 
sense of the life beyond, a consciousness that eternity 
begins here and now, and that heaven is only the 
highest and best of earth refined, exalted, projected, 
realised, that it is the attainment of a hope immortal, 
the realisation of a beauty and strength, a fineness and 
power, which with our narrow outlook we call perfec- 
tion. We pause upon the border, we veil our faces 
from the ineffable glory, but we know that it is there, 
and we reach out with high hope and strong faith to 
the unfolding of the life which we now live. Birth, 
life, death, eternity, we welcome all. We glory in ex- 



The Rounded Life 295 

perience, and we rejoice in the thought of that mind 
which this experience works out in us. 

With men and women so developed and so trained 
and so taught to fill their places in the world, there will 
come a society, keen, strong, noble, and tender; a 
society which is able to protect itself and at the same 
time provide advantages for the highest development 
of all. It will stir endless aspirations, and provide in 
full measure the conditions of the best and truest life. 

It may seem that this picture is too bright and that 
the things here set forth are impossible. But let me 
remind the reader that a man finds what he expects to 
find, or better still that he sees only what he brings 
with him to the spectacle. And viewed in the broader 
way, there is little doubt that the mind, with all its 
opportunities and enthusiasms, will surpass anything 
that has been thought or dreamed. To the man who 
has studied the life of the Christ-child and pondered 
the wonderful development which was manifested in 
him, there can surely not be lacking both example and 
inspiration for the highest ideals, and a most worthy 
hope of great realisation. 



ii 






INDKX 



Abstract and concrete, 211 

Accomplishnient and effort, 
relation between, 226 

Action, develops power, 16; 
aim determines, 25; no 
provision for, 59 

Activity, 218 

Adolescence, period of, 275 

Affection, higher, expulsive 
power of, 222 

Agencies, use available, 72 

Aim, variety of , 1 6 ; unity of, in 
education, 1 8 ; in character 
building, 1 9 ; determines 
action, 2 5 ; determines cur- 
riculum, 2 5 ; determines me- 
thod, 26; determines spirit, 
27; interest and, 174 

Ambition for excellence, 78 

Analogy, 208 

Apperception, 164; definition 
of, 165 

Apprenticeship in right liv- 
ing, 245 

Aptness to teach, 110 

Art, literature and, 92; im- 
agination in, 196 

Assistant superintendent of 
Sunday-school, 68 

Atlantis, legend of, 190 

Attention, 155; involuntary, 
156; must be taught, 156; 
expectant, 157; dispersed, 
158; and mental life, 159; 
and genius, 160; and inat- 
tention, 160; directions for 
cultivating the, 16 1-3 



Banks, A, L., quoted, 199 
Beatitudes, our unbelief in, 

48 
Bible, the, and the child, 87; 

106; a library, 106; a book 

of inspiration, 107 
Blunder, an unforgivable one. 

Board and clothes with varia- 
tions, 36-8 

Body, development of the, 
291 

Bonnicastle, Arthur, 93 

Boy's Town, A, 93 

Boy, the, his feelings, 269; 
grief seems to him holy, 269; 
physical changes in, 270; 
mental changes in, 271; 
spiritual changes in, 272; 
the greatest need of, 275 

Boyhood and manhood, 266 

Brotherliness, zones of, 262 

Business, competition in, 40; 
value of imagination in, 
197, 202; and will, 250 

Butler, Pres., paraphrased, 

139 
Byron, quoted, 166 



Carlyle, on attention, 155 
Carr, Supt., quoted, 11 3-4 
Castle-building, evil of, 200 
Chambered Nautilus, 139 
Channing's symphony, 256 
Character, the teacher makes, 
7 7 ; stability of, 213 



297 



298 



Index 



Character btdlding, the aim 

in, 19 
Child, the, hope of the par- 
ents for, 3; cannot receive 
the wisdom of age, 1 1 ; the 
sheltered, 12; to make in- 
vincible, 29; and the Bible, 
87 ; as a problem, 1 1 1 ; how- 
to study, 1 1 1 ; periods in the 
life of, 129-3 1 ; how to reach 
the will of, 245 ; guard, 261 ; 
the faith of, 262 
Children, how to study, 93 
Christ, a moral expert, 89 
Church, the, 35, 70; a con- 
servative force, 47 ; women 
in, 50 ; does not meet needs, 

SI 

Cicero, on training up to 
virtue, 24 

Cobden, quoted, 210 

Colleges, women trained for 
service in, 284 

Columbus, 30 

Co wen, on memory, 191 

Cramming, evils of, 203 

Culture value of the im- 
agination, 194 

Curriculum, aim determines, 
25; of Sunday-school, de- 
fects in, 55-6, 70 

Dabney, Pres., on true educa- 
tion, 24 

Day-dreaming, evils of, 200 

Day-school and Sunday- 
school compared, 87 

Decision, types of, 243 

Deduction, 2og ff 

Development of the indi- 
vidual, 34; parallel of na- 
tion and individual, 124-6; 
of the spiritual nature, 291, 
of the body, 291 ; of society, 
292 

Dickens's Child and the Star, 
270 

"Died a grocer," 19 

Dream Life, 93 



Drummond, 21 
Duty, love of, 216 

Eden, the coming, 14 

Education, the aim of, 15; 
Parker on, 15; wider mean- 
ing of, 15; unity of aim in, 
18; Pres. Dabney on true, 
24; a permanent interest of 
life, 170 

Efficiency, a motive, 216 

Effort and accomplishment, 
relation between, 226 

Element, the religious, 24; 
fiuidamental, 28 

Elements, the seven, 2 1 ; the 
three, 182 

Emerson quoted, 181, 292 

Emotion, place for, 224 

Environment, and self, 4 ; re- 
lation to, 137 

Evolution, Fiske's contribu- 
tion to, 5 

Excellence, ambition for, 78; 
desire for, 216 

Faber quoted, 2 68 

Faith, makes nations great, 
31; the old, in new forms, 
3 1 ; rests on the few, 2 60 ; 
moves from lower to higher 
plane, 261; of child and 
adult compared, 262; 
knowledge and, 263 

Faults, intellect a means of 
obviating, 212 

Feeling, development of, 45; 
value of, 252; and the in- 
ner life, 252; and progress 
252; cultivation of, 253; 
not an unmixed good, 253 ; 
a boy's, 269 

Fell, Dr., 84 

Field, the larger, 62 

First claim, the home has, 73 

Fiske, contribution to educa- 
tion, 5 

Force, glorified, 18 



Index 



299 



Formation and reformation, 

61 
Freedom to grow, 124 

Garden of Eden, work in, 44 

Generation, the next, 52 

Genius and attention, 160 

Genuine, teacher must be, 95 

Girl, the, sensitive to atmos- 
phere, 279; business train- 
ing for, 282; not an un- 
developed man, 284; the 
greatest need of, 285 

Girlhood to womanhood, 277 

God's record, 104 

Good, the, a great enemy of 
the best, 223 

Goodness, positive, 23; tra- 
ditional idea of, 274 

Gordon, 31 

Government, purpose of, 45; 
educates, 46; value of 
imagination in, 198 

Grief, seems holy to the boy, 
269 

Guard the child, 261 

Habit, practical value of, 228 ; 
general laws, 228; theory 
of, 228; the fly-wheel of 
society, 229; makes one un- 
willing to receive new light, 
231; how it enslaves, 232; 
chains of, 232; of success, 

234 

Habits, mental, 230; physical, 
230; gentlemanly, instil 
early, 233 ; forming of, 237 ; 
conditions of forming, 237 ; 
directions for forming, 238; 
personal, 239; business, 240 

Halleck quoted, 245 

Head enough, 78 

Hearing, 152 

Heart enough, 79 

Heart power, 181 

Heart, the, an organ of in- 
sight, 254 

Herbert, quoted, 180 



History, God in, 91 

Home, the, 34; has the first 

claim, 73 
Honesty, 21 
Hood, footnote, 138 
How to learn how, 91 
Hungers, the many, 136 

Ideal, the great, 259 

Ideals, place of, in character, 
257; value of, 280 

Ideal Sunday-school, the, 71 

Ideas, grouping of, 207 

Illustrations, character of, 
179-81 

Imagination, philosophical, 
192; ethical, 192; poetical, 
192; definition of, 192; and 
its culture, 192; types of, 
193; common attitude to- 
ward, 193 ; culture value of, 
194; materials for, 195; in 
literature, 195; and the 
senses, 195; in art, 196; 
value of, in teaching, 197; 
value of, in social life, 197; 
practical value of, 197; 
value in business, 197, 202 ; 
value in religion, 198; 
value in government, 198 

Impulse, an, then a deed, 267 

Incentives, good and bad, 219 

Individual, development of 
the, 34, 290 

Induction, 209 

Ingelow, Jean, quoted, 132-5 ; 

Inheritance, the religious, 32, 
1 44 ; literary, 1 40 ; scientific, 
141; aesthetic, 142; institu- 
tional, 143; and education, 
144 

Inner, the, and the outer life, 

254 

Insight, 2 1 ; the heart an 
organ of, 254 

Instruction, daily conversa- 
tions on, V. 

Intellect, a mean of obviating 
our faults, 212 



300 



Index 



Interest, 173; and aim, 174; 

the office of, 178 
Introduction, by F. M. Mc- 

Murry, v. 
Ironsides, CroraweH's, 31 
Irresolution, a fatal habit, 

242 

James, Prof., quoted, 173, 

210, 229, 243 
Joan of Arc, 29 

King, Pres., on religion for 

children, 60—1 
Kipling, on Cecil Rhodes, 192 
Knowledge, 23; new classes 

for, 166; love of, 218; faith 

and, 263 

Labour, a useless, lor 

Latimer, 30 

Laws, the general, of habit, 
228 

Lesson plan, 116 

Liberty, enough, 80; and will, 
250 

Librarian of the Sunday- 
school, 70 

Life, the School of, 4 

Life's lessons, each must 
learn for himself, 1 1 

Like pew, like preacher, 49 

Lincoln, 31 

Literature, and art, 92 ; im- 
agination in, 195 

Longing, 200 

Lost, two golden hours, 9 

Lost, nothing ever, from the 
mind, 235 

Love, 21, 218 

Lowell, on earth's heroes, 29; 
on progress, 90 ; on longing, 
200 

Loyola, 30 

Luther, 30 

Macbeth as a master of the 

outer life, 244 
Machinery and manhood, 1 7 



Machinery in modem life, 45 
Man, seven ages of, 127 
Manhood and machinery, 

17 

Mann, Horace, on lost time, 
9; on the next generation 
as a client, 52 

Mamer, Silas, 260 

Material for thought, abund- 
ance of, 204; by reading, 
206; by talking, 206 

Measurement, units of, 208 

Meditative Christianity, 49 

Memories, bitter, 189; of the 
past, 190 

Memory, location of, 182; 
train early, 187; and the 
higher powers, 187; a treas- 
ure house, 188 

Mental habits, 230 

Method, aim determines, 26 

Milton's definition of poetry, 
146 

Mind, and body, 122; pre- 
pared, 167; nothing ever 
lost from the, 235 

Mohammed, 31 

Moment, the supreme, 82 

Money, need of, 42 

Moral habits, 230 

Motivation, the importance 
of, 214 

Motive, definition of, 214; 
the right, 281 

Motives, kinds and value, 
214; hidden, 220; illustra- 
tion of hidden, 220; cxdti- 
vation of right, 222 

Motor side, the, 42 

Moulton, Prof., quoted, 254 

Multitude attracted Jesus, 94 

Native instincts, 176 
Nature, development of the 

spiritual, 292 
Natures that repel, 84 
New forms of old truth, 1 04 

Occupation, value of, 41 



Index 



301 



Office of the Sunday-school, 
98 

Officers, and teachers, need 
of, 57 ; good may be had, 58 

Old truth in new forms, 104 

Only thirty minutes, 66 

Open-mindedness, 22 

Open mind, the, 100 

Organisation of the Sunday- 
school, 67 

Owning property, 36 

Oxford, 30 

Parents' hope for the child, 3 

Parker, on education, 15 

Patience, no 

Paul, 21 

Pearls, the lost, 8 

Perseverance, 22 

Personal element, the, 173 

Personal habits, 239 

Physical habits, 230 

Pity in woman's character, 

284 
Placing the class, directions 

for, 114 
Play spirit, the, 266 
Point of contact, 175 
Positive goodness, 23 
Pope, on vice, 236 
Power, developed by action, 

1 6 ; desire for, 215 
Praise, love of, 215 
Prentiss, S. S., anecdote of, 

156-7 
Preparation, the teacher's, 86 
Prisoner, the Oriental, 233 
Problem, a profound, 88 
Progress and conservatism, 

166 
Psalmist, warning of, 81 
Purposes, great, 217 
"Put yourself in his place," 

22 

Reading, as a method of ac- 
cumulating material, 206 
Reasoning, methods of, 209 
Recall and recognition, 182 



Record, God's, 104 

Religion, of child and man, 
59; value of imagination 
in, 198; and will, 251 

Religious element, 24; funda- 
mental, 28 

Religious life of the boy, 267 

Remembering, conditions of, 

184-5 
Reward, the teacher's, 82 
Ridley, 30 

Righteousness, practice in, 65 
Right living, apprenticeship 

in, 245 
Right material, 175 
Right time to present truth, 

175 
Roads to truth are many, 

103 
Rounded life, the, 289 
Ruskin, on thirst after justice, 

20; on religion of nature, 

105 
Ryle quoted, 107 

School of Life, the, 4 

School, the, 35, 38; a burden 
bearer, 40 

Secretary of Sunday-school, 
69 

Seeking after God, 28 

Self-activity and environ- 
ment, 136 

Self and environment, 4 

Self, what it is, 173 

Senses, the, 146; education of 
the, 153; imagination and 
the, 195 

Sentiments, birth of, in a 
child's life, 7 

Sermon on the Mount, teach- 
ings of, 47 

Service, spirit of, 44; need of, 
281 

Shield the young, 236 

Shrady, Dr., and the butch- 
er's boy, 36 

Sight, 150 

Smell, 149 



302 



Index 



Society, 35, 40; competition 
in, 40; the stamp of, 41; 
value of imagination in, 
197 ; habit the fly-wheel of, 
229; development of, 292 

Sorrow, ministry of, 283 

Soul, and body, 122; the 
climbing, 136 

Spaulding, Bishop, Educa- 
tion and the Higher Life, 
256 

Special hungers, 178 

Spectacles, every man carries 
his own, 165 

Spirit, aim determines the, 

2.7. 
Spiritual and Physical, 123 

Spiritual thermometer, the, 

49 
Stability of character, 213 
Standards, different, to which 
boys and girls are required 
to conform, 278 
Stock in trade, the teacher's, 

96 
Striving, the value of, 13 
Struggle and character, 137 
Struggle with world neces- 
sary for power, 13 
Stubbornness, our, 56 
Subconscious field, the, 234 
Success, the habit of, 234 
Superintendent of Sunday- 
school, 67 
Supervision of conduct, 65 
Supreme moment, the, 82 
Sunday-school, charges 
against, 54-5 ; defects in 
curriculum, 55-6; aim of, 
64 ; organisation of, 67; the 
ideal, 7 1 ; compared with 
day-school, 87; office of 
the, 98 
Sympathy, 108 
Symphony, Channing's, 256 

Talking as a method of ac- 
cumulating material, 206 
Taste, 148 



Taylor, Jane, story of The 
Mysterious Stranger, 6 

Teacher, the soul of the 
school, 39; must be genu- 
ine, 95; two relations, 108; 
before the class, 114 

Teacher's, the, stock in trade, 
96 

Teachers, character of, 40; 
need of, 57; training class 
for, 98 

Teaching, cost of, 32; oppor- 
tunity for, 66; value of 
imagination in, 197 

Temper, keeping one's, 210 

Tennyson, quoted, 170 

Test, the, of service is use, 52 ; 
of the right course of action 
224 

The Bird with the Broken 
Wing, 258 

Things worth while, 43, 221 

Thinking, fundamental con- 
dition of, 202; value of 
imagination in, 202; time 
for reaction necessary, 205 ; 
use of will in, 207 ; practice 
in, 210 

Thought, definition of, 202; 
and thought culture, 202; 
running a, down, 205 

Thought material, abund- 
ance of, 204 

Thring, quoted, 214 

Tiger, bound by habit, 232 

Time, enough, 79; too little, 
8 1 ; necessary for reaction 
in thinking 205 

To thine own self be true, 104 

Touch, 147 

Training-class, a teachers', 98 

Trine, In Tune with the In- 
finite, 256 

Truth, roads to, are many, 103 

Truthfulness, 268 

Unforgivable blunder, an, 83 
Units of meastirement, 208 
Use is test of service, 52 



Index 



303 



Valley Forge, 31 
Value, practical, of the im- 
agination, 197 
Variety of aims, 16 

Washington, 31 

Way, the better, 61 

Wesley, 30 

What is man? 121 

White, Dr., quoted, 246 

Whittier, on Scripture in the 
heart, 89; Snowbound, 
quoted, 264 

Will, the, 242 ; use of, in think- 
ing, 207 ; how to reach the 
child's, 245; trained, not 
broken, 247; uses of, 248; 



training of the, 249; liberty 

and the, 250; business and 
the, 250; religion and the, 

251 
Wilfulness, 248 
Wisdom of age, child cannot 

receive, 11 
Witnesses, God's, 89 
Wonder, the element of, 263 
Wordsworth, footnote, 138 
Work, the teacher's, 77 
Working, ways of, 63 
Writing, a step in the thought 

process, 210 

Youth, the untrained, 9 
Youth's Companion, The, 94 



G 27 1904 




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